When you preach the Gospel, part two

Miss Part One? You can catch up here.

It’s been one of those weeks. Those weeks that run by you so hard, they knock the wind out of you as they push past your shoulder. Those weeks where I am cranky, and moody, and lonely, and my husband feels the brunt of all my angst-ridden figuring out of life. Those weeks where my intentions, and desires, and hopes and dreams gather dust as every day routine and exhaustion are the great materialistic consumers of my energy and will-power.

George MacDonald wrote that people preach best what they need to here most.

Those weeks. Those weeks where I desperately need the gospel.

Because it was also this week that the snow fell, hushing the mad rush into a quiet rest, blanketing stress and madness and intentions and plans with glittering futility. A full stop. And it was also this week that the sun came out and glittered across the top of the snow, and an unexpected check came in the mail and the Gospel played out right in front of my crankiness, and I hardly even noticed it.

So here I am, preaching the Gospel to myself. Dwell here with me?

I wrote about how the Gospel means that you can kick off your shoes and walk on holy ground before the Lord of Heaven’s Armies without shame, because you are clothed in the righteousness of Christ. That is the blood and grace of the Gospel.

But this Gospel is so much greater and grander and more minute and infinitesimal. It reaches across the galaxies, but it also prods into every practical, tiny corner of the human life. This is why the blood of Christ has to become our lifeblood, because it changes every thing. Every breath, every moment, every worry.

It changes every thing because the final question has already been answered.

The final question about you, about me, has already been answered. The most important question. The question that answers all questions.

Am I secure? Am I safe? Will I be loved enough? Will I have enough? Should I be afraid? Who will take care of me? Who will notice me? Who will cherish me? How will I ever get past myself?

The final question is answered: you and I have been provided the blood of Christ, so that we may stand blameless for the Father, forever glorifying and being glorified in Him, in the riches of his love, the fullness of grace, and the security of his holiness.

There is no question that can be asked about you or me that is not answered in the Gospel.

Our greatest debts have already been paid. We have been bought, ransomed, freed.

Our greatest love-needs have already been filled. Someone has sacrificed everything for us.

Our greatest security has been sealed by the Holy Spirit.

We have the most loving care-taker, and we are the apple of his eye.

The loving Father, the holy of holies, will bring his children into his glory. This is the answer to all our questions, to all our worries, and fears, and insecurities.

Do we get this? The questions have all been answered with a great, resounding I AM.

And this means that all our worries and fears and anxieties, when held up to the light of the Gospel, dissolve into thin vapors. Because there is not a question that our hearts quiver at that will shake the Gospel.

No. Matter. What.

This is the Gospel. There is nothing that can happen, no question that can occur, no fear that can be fulfilled that will mitigate our final answer.

This is the Gospel. That will live, without anxieties or worries about today or tomorrow or any day, because all days have I AM and he loves us.

This is the Gospel. That the Lord of Heaven’s Armies has said yes to me, that he will bring me into his kingdom, into his greatness, into his glory. No bill, or loan, or fear, or insecurity, or conflict with my husband, or loneliness, or any other worry I can conjure up will ever change that.

This is the Gospel. We have the fullness of his riches.

And after one of those weeks, when the sun brings its mood-lifting Ds and the snow adds a quiet blanket over the anxiety of Long Island, there is a white hushing in my heart into quiet rest. There is nothing – nothing – in this world that can shake my God, and he is for me, and with me – and I have absolutely nothing to fear.

And I sleep, breathe easy and deep, in the freedom of a complete trust.