​93. Who Do You Say He Is?

Sin. That’s what we get so wrong.

I’m trying to pin down what bothers me about how the Gospel is often reframed in modern-day Christian churches, and I realize one of two things often happens:

1. Sin is the dirty word nobody talks about.

OR

2. Everyone is beaten over the head with the idea of sin so thoroughly that nobody’s halfway conscience enough to truly embody what Christ did on the cross.

Why can’t we get this right?

I’m reading a really great commentary on Romans in the Enduring Word Commentary app. The way Paul acknowledges and aptly outlines the depravity of the human heart and then leads up to the beautiful crescendo is breathtaking: Jesus taking our place on the cross and suffering and dying for our sin so we can live in eternity with our precious Father. And how that can only be our reality if we have faith in who He says He is.

Who do you say He is?

I think sometimes we want the sin. We want to see someone practicing homosexuality or having an abortion or committing a murder so we can have something tangible to point at and say, “Look there. There’s the evil.” But how much strength it must take to not turn that finger at our own hearts.

The evil is in all of us. And even though I don’t plug my ears to the high-pitched scream of our ever falling world, I also know that a person can’t be rid of it and sanctified without submitting at the foot of the cross.

So that’s our job, not closing our eyes to sin but not idolizing the threat of it either. We are to bring the TRUE Gospel to everyone we meet, from our family and friends who have fallen into the trap of religion and are undeniably confused by what Scripture says to the stranger on the street who thinks there’s absolutely no room for God in his heart.

And whether or not somebody chooses Christ because of us isn’t the point.

The point is He died so we could live beyond the bounds of the sins that sear our hearts.

And who wouldn’t want to talk about that?