Origin
Origin
Galatians, Chapter 1, No Other Gospel
We are diving into the book of Galatians with the idea that we have been Rescued and there is No Going Back. In the first chapter we are focusing on the fact that the Gospel is GOOD NEWS! There is No Other Gospel, no other good news that is entirely true and trustworthy. No Other Gospel that carries the news of a Rescuing Savior, a Righteous Ruler, a Grace-filled Father and a Faithful Friend. The Gospel reveals Jesus and Rescues us from our own destructive ways. No Other Gospel has the power to save, to heal, to transform and to make us entirely whole.
Welcome back to the Table of Origin. Some things have happened since we sat around this table. We've had a couple of tornadoes, and I've been in a hurricane. Last night, I heard that West Texas had an earthquake.
Kyli Rose:This spring has been wild!
ReGina Johnston:It's raining here today, which is kind of nice. It's a nice, gentle rain.
Jina McAfee:No huge winds.
ReGina Johnston:Kyli, you've moved since the last time we talked. Jina, what's been going on in your life?
Jina McAfee:A lot of things. For one thing, my husband went to half time. We've been updating our house, and it's pretty much done so that feels good. We've got kiddos growing up. We had granddaughters stay with us overnight, a big sister, a one-year-old and a three-year-old. Oh my goodness, life is busy. We were so tired, but a sweet, sweet time.
ReGina Johnston:Awesome. I'm glad you get to spend time with them. I get to zoom with mine, almost every weekend, not zoom, but FaceTime. That's pretty interesting and sometimes, chaotic. They get in fights in the middle of our FaceTime. Or they take the phone off, and you can't see anybody. Sometimes, they talk and have conversations with us. And sometimes they're wanting food. It's always a busy season, but it's good to sit at the table with my friends and my co-workers, Jina McAfee and Kyli Rose, co-travelers in this life with the Word. I love that. This season, we're going to dive into Galatians. We're going to look into that book with the idea that we have been rescued. And we're not going back. When I hear that phrase, I almost have a physical response internally. I've been rescued. What about you?
Jina McAfee:I feel covered. I feel protected. Wanted.
Kyli Rose:It's a very personal word. I can think of multiple situations, multiple seasons, moments where I deserve to be rescued, like life just happened and God was there. And then I think of moments where I didn't deserve to be rescued. And God was there. So it just takes me back to multiple places and spaces in my history where God was faithful again and again and again.
ReGina Johnston:We hear that in the past tense, "rescued." That does something to your yearning to be rescued. In this life, I've had that yearning so many times. Would somebody just rescue me? You see it in movies and videos with the knight on the white horse riding in to save the princess. That is the idealistic way we look at some of our situations. But it has already been done. And I love that! We're going to look at rescue through the book of Galatians. We're going to start in the first chapter today. What is some of the context of this book of Galatians?
Jina McAfee:I had never realized it before, but the book of Galatians is possibly the first written Word of the New Testament given, before the Gospels, before Acts, before Romans, before Revelation, before other letters. It is actually a letter written to churches in Galatia. And it's written by Paul. He's the perfect person to write this letter. He would have said, "I was a law man, I was a Pharisee of Pharisees." And he was actually persecuting the Church. He didn't know Christ at all. He didn't know that He was Messiah, until He knocked him on the ground. It's like he was awakened to who God was, and he started understanding that life changed completely. When Jesus came and died and rose again for us, it changed our lives. We no longer live under the law but under grace. Paul had spoken this word, the gospel message. The reason Galatians came forth is that he was seeing or hearing about people coming in and purposefully teaching a false or fake gospel, a fake good news. It was watering down what we have in Christ. Even today, we can live partly in grace and partly in law. So the book of Galatians is just as powerful today.
ReGina Johnston:Absolutely. We're going to dive into the definition of the gospel, but a good way to set it up is with a dad-joke illustration. You may have heard about this large two-engine train that was making its way across America. While crossing the western mountains, one of the engines broke down. So the engineer thought, no problem, we can make it to Denver and get a replacement engine there. But no sooner had he thought that in his mind, the other engine broke down. You can almost hear the train rolling along on the track and beginning to slow down until it comes to a screeching halt. Of course, the passengers are wondering what in the world is going on, and the engineer knows he's going to have to address them. Here's something for leaders to know, when there is no word, there is a vacuum, and the vacuum will be filled with something. So it's better to speak to the problem, to speak to the situation. The engineer knew that he needed to inform the passengers. And, because he always looked on the bright side of things, here's the way that he made his announcement, "Ladies and gentlemen, I have some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that both engines have failed. And we're going to be stuck here for some time until the additional engines arrive.[You know that people are checking their watches. But quickly on the heels of that, he says,] The good news is that you didn't take this trip on the plane." Now, I don't know if that actually caused some laughter in the train, but I always meet tragic issues with a little bit of strange humor. For me, it's a stress reliever. And it sets us up for where we're headed this morning.
Kyli Rose:The one thing that differs from the story is that there is no bad news about the gospel, right? It's just good news. So the very first thing we see is that the gospel is good news. And we're going to pick up in Galatians 1:6-9. This is Paul speaking. He says, "I am astonished. [Some translations would say, I am marveled, like I'm just baffled. I'm astonished] that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ, and you're turning to a different gospel, which is really no gospel at all. [There is no good news in it.] Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion, and they're trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one that we preached to you, let them be under God's curse! As we've already said, so now I say
it again:If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you have accepted, let them be under God's curse!" Paul typically has a certain pattern when writing the letters in the New Testament. He kind of follows a template. He'll introduce himself, he'll give praise and glory to the goodness and the majesty of God who sent him. And then he'll typically have some words of encouragement or some words of thanks or praise to the audience he's writing to. Paul does not do that here in Galatians. He just dives right on in. For a little
bit of context:He has spent time with these people. He has loved them, and he has pastored them. He's invested in them. He has shared the gospel. He's worked alongside them. And here they are choosing something else, this watered down version of the gospel. So he talks about this beautiful, profound gospel, and then he just dives in. He can't believe that they would settle for anything else. This word "astonished" reveals that his mind is just blown. "Why would you do that?"
ReGina Johnston:Like I see that little emoji with the girl's hand across her face, covering her face. "I just can't believe it." And here's the thing, lest we judge, we so quickly deviate from grace today, right?
Kyli Rose:Right. And I love how you see this faithfulness in
Paul. In Romans 1:16, he says,"I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it's the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first, and also for the Greek." Paul has solidified his faith. We see throughout the New Testament: He's been shipwrecked. He's been bitten by a snake. He's been persecuted. He's beaten. He's been imprisoned. All these different things. He sets an example. And he is saying,"Listen! You don't have to turn back, no matter how hard it is." It would have been easier for some of these believers to go back to what they knew and what was comfortable. And he's saying, "Don't do it. I know there's a cost, but it's worth it." And I feel like if anyone can say that, it's Paul. The gospel is good news!
Jina McAfee:It is. We live in a time where there is a lot of bad news in the world. And we also experience bad news in our own lives. Devastating news for my husband and me was when he lost a job. Some people have experienced a spouse walking away. Maybe they said, "I don't think I love you anymore. I'm just leaving." Or maybe there's a medical diagnosis that can rock your world. It can cause everything else to stop, and that's all you're focusing on. Maybe you've planned a vacation and the washing machine stops working and you have to say, "We can't really go on this vacation right now; we've got to buy a new washing machine instead." So there are different degrees of
bad news. But in John 16:33, Jesus said, "In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." You can shift your focus from the hard things going on in your life to the truth that you're not home yet. If you acknowledge and live for Jesus now, you will be with Him forever and ever. We've got good news. We have the gospel.
ReGina Johnston:Second Corinthians, chapter four, calls it a "treasure." We we have this treasure. It's the power of God in us, the gospel in us. And I love that. We have it. It's freely given. So resoundingly, we want to say as we open this book of Galatians, "The gospel is good news!" When you say something is good news, it can sound so light, but this is weighty. The gospel is good news. We can't afford to lose it. It's not unimportant. It's not just good advice. It's not just an announcement, a fleeting announcement. It's not that. Sometimes we complicate it, but really, you don't have to have gone to seminary to grasp what the gospel does in you. You don't have to be in ministry. You don't even have to be a Christian for very long. Just an experience of the gospel will change you eternally. And there's a pretty popular series going on right now called The Chosen. When asked what happened to her, the character Mary didn't quite know how to explain it. This is Mary Magdalene. She has a history. She said, "I don't know quite what happened. All I know is where I was, and where I am now. And what happened in between was Jesus." That is a good news sandwich!
Kyli Rose:What happened? I don't know. All I know is that I was blind, and now I see. What was the factor that changed everything? It's Jesus.
ReGina Johnston:I love that. In my notes, it says, "All you really need to understand is that 2000 years ago, an invasion took place. Having came to earth in the person of Jesus, He set up a new kingdom different from what they thought it would be. But really, you don't even have to know that. You do have to know that He lived a life I cannot live. And because He loved us, He died the death I deserved to die. I mean, this is the simplicity of it. He took my place, basically. On the cross, He was treated as if He had lived my sinful life so that I could live a righteous life. And then He was buried and rose again. He rose from the dead, all of that, so that I can have eternal life, so that I can live eternally. That is the gospel in a nutshell.
Kyli Rose:So you think, "What is the gospel?" And then the most natural question is, "What are the implications for me? What what does the gospel mean for me?" You were talking about the bad news, Jina. I think all of us will experience "hard," but the gospel transformed me from the inside out. And so it's not just this additional thing that I write into my life. It actually changes how I experience the hard in life. It changes the way I hear. It changes the way I see, the way I respond, the way I experience things. Now that I'm a believer, I filter every single thing, the good, the bad, the ugly, through the truth and the transformative work of the gospel. And it changes everything. It's not just a crutch. You'll sometimes hear it called a crutch. It's not that. It transforms me.
ReGina Johnston:It so minimizes the gospel to call it a crutch.
Kyli Rose:So we know Jesus came, He lived the sinless life, He died on the cross, but He didn't stay dead. He walked out three days later. So now because of all of this, what does this mean for you and me? This means that in our rebellious state, in our sinful nature that we were born into, that if we choose, and we trust Jesus, and we're united with Him in Christ, that we will get to live with Him forever, in this life, and the next, that believers will one day be resurrected in new bodies fit for a new resurrected earth to live and rule under Him forever. You'll hear this and think, it's too good to be true. I love the Word because it is so true. It's completely and totally true. So it's good news. But it's news that is entirely true. We stake our lives on this Word. It is not this coincidental thing. It's not a book of morality tales. It was written on multiple continents by multiple authors over a span of 1500 years, with no contradictions. It is completely true. We are continually finding more and more evidence that solidifies its validity. You can stake your life on this gospel, on this good news. It is entirely true. Jesus was there in the beginning, all the way to the end. It is the news of a rescuing Savior. It's the news of a righteous Ruler. It's the news of a grace-filled Father. It's the news of a faithful Friend, news of a peace-giving Comforter, news of a larger-than-life Leader. It is news that you and I are not good enough, not smart enough, strategic enough, righteous enough, loving enough, diligent enough or wise enough. The entire story hinges on Him. It's all about a Father who sent His Son to rescue you and me. It all comes down to Jesus. We could never earn eternal life but Jesus gives it as a free gift. He is a free gift to all of us who will receive it. That is
Jina McAfee:We need to realize we could not and cannot do good news! anything to earn favor, that our sin had to be paid for by One who is sinless. There is only One fully God, fully man that could pay the price. When I see a representation of what He went through, I understand just a little bit of His love for me. The gospel cannot be bad news! This evil age, and really, all of life for all of the centuries since the world began, is an evil age, and it is a backdrop for the good news. It stands out! The gospel is a new and better way. For people who lived without Jesus, and then stepped into living with Jesus, they saw a night and day difference. But the truth is, we all do that. We all go through that same journey. When Jesus died and was resurrected, people could step into that new way of living. You can step into that new way of living. All you need to do is hear the message, believe the message, embrace the message, and live the message. Believing is the supernatural work that God does through the Word. We live out what we believe. For someone to jump out of an airplane, they're first going to believe that their parachute will open. So we absolutely with everything inside of us know that the message is from God. The good news is from Him and through Him and to Him. It cannot be bad news because the gospel reveals Jesus. It reveals Him. And this is what Paul said. He said, "I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. I did not receive it from any man nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ."
That's Galatians 1:11-12. Paul had a supernatural revelation straight from God.
ReGina Johnston:Not only is the gospel good news, it can't be bad news. Not only is it entirely true, it's extremely personal. As you look at these verses that Jina just read, it says, "I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. I did not receive it from any man nor was I...." There are a lot of "I's." Paul personally received it by Jesus Christ. I love that. So it's extremely personal. We all need to have that extremely personal revelation of the gospel, and then receive it as a free gift. We all need to have that. It's interesting, though, after Paul received this encounter with Jesus, it did not go unchecked. Sometimes we have revelations that don't necessarily have spiritual meaning. Like we eat pizza the night before and dream of bunches of flying pizzas. But this was an extremely personal encounter with a life-changing God that did not go unchecked. Paul not only met up with other people of the gospel, but he also checked what had happened to him in relationship to what was being taught by Jesus. So he realized that this was really a true experience. The good news begins in Genesis, just like Kyli said, and it ends with Revelation revealing Jesus Christ all the way through. It reveals who He is. It reveals His plan. It reveals His purpose. And through this book, I think we've already said, He wants to reveal Himself to you and to me, and it's not just a one-time revelation. He does not mind repeating Himself. And frankly, I need the repetition. I need Him today, to reveal Himself to me as Savior, as Teacher, as a Miracle-Worker, as Someone who can move the obstacles in my path. I need that revelation today. I need to know that someday, He's coming back, and He is going to set up a kingdom. And it is going to be a kingdom like we have never experienced here on this earth. It's going to be that idealistic thing that our soul has longed for, but our eyes have never seen. He's coming back. I need that revelation today. In fact, I just got it. As I was sitting here talking about it. I just got that fresh hope for something different.
Kyli Rose:This matters so much. What you're saying is, if I'm going to get fresh revelation, that will come from my time with the Lord, but also from time in His Word. I was reading something yesterday that said,"A consistent church goer [and they consider a consistent church goer to be someone who attends once a month.] that only 8% of those are actually engaging with the Bible one time a week." What we see is that we have this increasingly curious generation, spiritually curious,
with big questions:Why am I here? What am I created for? What am I called to do? I believe that all of us have those same questions, but we are going to other places to get those answers. And we wonder why we are increasingly confused and frustrated. I wish we could stay right here for the rest of the podcast. We keep going to prophetic conferences, and it's nothing against those things at all, please hear me, but God wants to reveal Himself to us in a very personal way, right in your living room, every single day. You can have as much of Him as you want, and you will still never be able to fully discover a God who is completely infinite. You cannot know Him apart from His Word. You can't. And you won't be disappointed. You'll find that the more you search Him out, the better you'll find Him to be, the kinder you'll find Him to be.
Jina McAfee:I love that. I thought about when Paul met Jesus, basically, he didn't know Him at all. But he knew that He was Lord. He knew Whoever was there with him was Lord. He said, "Who are you, Lord? Who are you?" He wanted to reveal Himself to Paul, and He wants to reveal Himself to you. It changed Paul's life forever. But just like you said, Paul went and searched the Scriptures, and it all fit. He saw it. It fit exactly as prophesied, exactly as written. Exactly. We're seeing it come to pass. And so I I love that. Regina, I love when you said we long for this, because He put it inside of us, right? He put it inside of it. So cool.
Kyli Rose:So we see that the gospel reveals Jesus, and then
Jina McAfee:I love that. The gospel has power. It's we see that the gospel rescues. We are in the midst of this really chaotic, confusing time. And they were, too. Life has always been just a little bit crazy. And we see that the gospel was transforming even in the midst of chaos. And the gospel is still transforming even in the midst of chaos. In
Galatians 1:4, it says, "Jesus gave His life for our sins in order to rescue us from this evil world in which we live." There are several factors involved in a rescue, right? Practically, somebody needs to be rescued. Then you need someone to volunteer to rescue and then you see that the rescuer deserves the credit. I think part of the struggle is that they were wanting to go back to a way of living where they could earn their way, where they still had some form of control. I think part of the gospel is just coming to the very end of yourself. We talked about embracing it. I think practically that looks like just humbling yourself before Him, admitting that you cannot rescue yourself. I have tried. Amazon offers me 45,000 options of three steps to do this and seven steps to that. We are the most informed generation, yet we are still floundering. Why? Because we are still like the Galatians wanting to have a mixture of both, where I can check my Jesus box, but I also still have the reins, and I'm holding them tightly, and I'm trying to control my life. I was listening to something yesterday where the speaker said that addiction is like a disorder of worship. That's really what it is. That is so true. We've gotten things out of order. There is this hole in all of us and Jesus is the only One who can fill it. In Luke 15, the religious leaders were trying to trap Jesus and and they were frustrated with how He hung out with broken people. Essentially, they're asking, "Why do You hang out with scum?" Then He gives them these three parables which were like illustrated teachings, the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin and the lost son. And in every single one of those, we see the same three factors: something needed to be rescued, the coin, the sheep, the son. They could not rescue themselves. So Jesus came and rescued them. We see the Father running to the son, lifting up His dress, which would have been so shameful in that time. He was taking the shame that the son was carrying. He's like, "I'll take the shame for you. And I'll run toward you. I'll come and rescue you." We are the coin. We are the sheep. We are the son. We are the someone who needs deliverance. Sin has wrapped its tentacles around us and it has bound us. And some of us are still just so bound. But Jesus intentionally volunteered to come and rescue you and me. And the Bible declares that while we were yet sinners, Jesus died for us. We cannot rescue ourselves. I have tried and tried and tried. And I have failed and failed and failed. Only Jesus can rescue us from our sin and from ourselves. And He does deserve all the credit. It's all about Him. supernatural. The Word is supernatural. Paul said, "I received my message from no human source and no one taught me. I received it by direct revelation from Jesus Christ." He does that with us, too. Just like Regina said, there is an initial revelation, where you know Him to begin with, but there is also continual revelation. There's such an excitement in knowing Christ. And we know Him through the Word, right? Because He is the living Word. If we sat here and told our stories, we would have a supernatural happening in each one of our lives when we first really discovered who He is but also over and over again. This weekend, ReGina asked, "When was the last time that God hit you'upside of the head' and got your attention?" For context, she was sharing another person's story and that was the phrase he used when God interrupted his life. But we get to seek that out, right? By being in the Word, just like Kyli said. If you're in the Word only once a week, that's not enough. If you are in the Word more than you're not in the Word, so four or more times a week, reading it or listening to it, it's going to change your life. It's going to change how you live. It's going to change how you think. 23 says, "He who once persecuted us is now preaching the faith which he once tried to destroy." So it changed Paul's life completely. He didn't lose sight of it. Day after day after day, he shared Christ, he shared the good news. It will radically change us, too. When we meet Him face to face, we will be like Him. So be intentional. Spend time in the Word. God told Joshua to meditate on the Book of the Law day and night. We encourage you to look at being in the Word not as just checking off a box, but as Someone you're with. That's how you get to know Him. He wants you to know Him personally, like we just said. It's all about relationship.
Kyli Rose:So what does the Bible say about the gospel? In
Romans 1:16, it says, "This gospel, this good news, is the power of God unto salvation." So the Word sets us free from sin. It sets us free from old mindsets. And it will transform our lives. God doesn't want you to just be a better, semi more healthy, functional version of you. He actually wants to transform you from the inside out because He has something for you to do. Then God said through the prophet Isaiah that it's the same with My Word. I send it out, and it always produce fruit. It will accomplish all that I want it to and it will prosper everywhere I send it. It elicits a response. And it produces fruit. That's Isaiah 55:11. Our lives are fruitful, right? The Word says, "Be transformed by the renewing of your mind." It says, "He sent His Word and healed them" physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. The gospel has the power to give hope. It is a sure foundation, one that you can count on. It's a message of grace. And it's a message of hope. And if you're a Christ follower today, you are because someone shared the gospel with you. So knowing what we know about the gospel, that it is good and transformative, who are you actively sharing it with? That is the mission. Why? Because people still need to be free from sin. People still need breakthrough from old mindsets, depression, trauma, all sorts of mess, and people still need to be transformed. And while we still have time to share the good news, let us do it with gusto.
ReGina Johnston:This reminds me of a friend who shared with us at one point that she had information that the school where she worked was going to allow people to take hours of school for free. This was during 2020. So she was trying to tell everybody she knew because this was really good news and what an opportunity. So she was telling this person and that person, people she didn't even know. And then the Lord spoke to her spirit and said, "What I've given you is free. And you're not sharing it as freely as you're sharing this information about a school where people will receive information that does not transform, that is not as powerful as the Word, that does not necessarily heal and in some cases, may not necessarily be true." You know what I'm saying? They're not receiving something that makes them whole, that rescues them. So that's another point. The gospel is eternal. It transcends the time of my life, the time of your life here on this earth. It transcends all of
time. In Matthew 5:18 Jesus said this, "Until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke of a letter shall pass from the Law until it is all fulfilled." I love that. It's eternal. And there are many prophecies in the gospel that are still to be fulfilled. Many have been fulfilled, but there are some still to be fulfilled. And they will come to pass. The psalmist says this, "My eyes anticipate the night watches, that I might meditate on Your word" (Psalm 119:148). He anticipated the time where he could meditate on the Word. I wonder if we have this hunger, this anticipation for the Word. I know I've got things I've got to do in a day, but let me anticipate that secret time that I get to spend with the Lord and receive life from the gospel so that I might be transformed, even rescued from the thoughts that seek to bind me today.
Kyli Rose:Can you help? I feel like people need help with that piece practically. How do I cultivate hunger? How do I get to this place? Like, how did you do that personally?
ReGina Johnston:So you have to prime the pump, so to speak. It's so easy to come from such a crowded mind into the Word and not even be able to compute what is being said. I still say, go there. Play it. Read it. It doesn't always have to break through the mind to get to the spirit. There is something supernatural that happens there. But boy, when the spirit and the mind and the emotions all line up over the gospel, that's when that something supernatural happens. And for me, it takes a little bit of discipline. You know, we frown on that when it comes to the Word, but when it comes to exercise, most people are game to go. Or when it comes to watching what you eat or to building a business you love, you fight for it. If any of you have built a business, you know it takes some discipline. We don't mind expending that discipline into something that's not necessarily eternal and life changing and truth filled and so able to set us free as time in the Word. And it doesn't take much. There's also a front loading capacity, right? If you begin to layer that and layer that and layer that Word, your life will change. Jina, can you share that study about life change from the Word?
Jina McAfee:We heard about a study with people eight to 80, believers and unbelievers, 40,000 people. If they were in the Word or heard the Word four times or more a week, it would change their life. It would lower their odds over 50% for getting drunk, 66% lower odds for having sex outside of marriage. It changes what you want to do. It changes your desires. 61% lower odds for viewing pornography for those in the Word, because the Word filled them. That's four times or more in the Word a week. Also, people were more likely to share Christ. Like you were saying, your friend would share about free school hours, but was convicted about not sharing what will change your life. When you are in the Word four or more times a week, you are 250% more likely to share your faith. It will awaken you. It awakens you. You talked about layering. Sometimes you just have to start. You get in there and then it speaks to you. It becomes life. And it will build, right? It'll grow.
ReGina Johnston:Kyli, I know that you know about this, and I know Jina knows about it, because we're all trying to get stronger physically. There's this powder called creatine. My son has told me that it is the most studied supplement. Supposedly, if you take it on a regular basis, it helps you develop your muscle and be stronger. There's a front loading capacity to it. It does not start that way. You have to front load it and begin taking it regularly before you see the results. It's the same way with the Word. If you will go to it with an open heart and with a little bit of discipline and let the Lord speak to you and give you personal revelation, layering it for four or more times a week, you will see a multiplication process happen.
Jina McAfee:And you will want it. It's like your food and your drink. It's like everything you need, and you know it, but you do have to step in first.
ReGina Johnston:If someone told you that if you will just take this little pill four times a week, and after that, you'll be stronger, you'll be able to withstand storms that come your way, you'll have boldness and power that you didn't have before, you would take it, right. So I think the breakdown is in our belief that it really works. Honestly, we don't know the science behind the little pill. But if a professional tells us it'll work, we're going to try it. Why do you think that doesn't translate sometimes?
Jina McAfee:I think there's a battle. There is an enemy and he doesn't want you to be in the Word. He knows if you will be in the Word, you will be a changed person.
Kyli Rose:You have to die to yourself. When I am saying "yes" to Christ, I am also saying "no" to me. When I'm saying yes to that workout, I am saying no to something else that I would rather be doing. When I say yes to that meal, I want this one instead. I feel like sometimes we're so focused on the cost that we don't understand that we're paying a cost either way and one is so much greater than the other. So it does require death to self that does not come naturally. It is a supernatural thing that happens in the process of choosing over and over and over again. I want to sleep in, but I'm going to get up 10 minutes earlier, just to spend a little time with the Lord because I know I need it. So it's like recognizing the need. Like, I know, I desperately need to be rescued. I cannot rescue myself. There's humility. All of it starts with humility. Even our salvation starts with humility. There's a sense of urgency. And I don't know if we always have that. I think sometimes we feel like, I'm pretty good. I think I've got it somewhat together. But when you get to the end of yourself, it's amazing how that urgency is created. You know when you are just stuck. And I don't know, if we always realize how stuck we actually are without Christ.
Jina McAfee:Sometimes I think we just have to come to the very end of ourselves. We cannot do it. We cannot do the job. We cannot provide for ourselves. We cannot. We're just in that situation where we see, I can't do this. And that's how I came to know the Lord. And I think that happens a lot of times.
Kyli Rose:You see it over and over again. You're coping until you can't.
ReGina Johnston:You're like that frog in the boiling pot. The water's heating up bit by bit, and you aren't even realizing you're almost at the end of your rope.
Kyli Rose:Those distractions work until they don't. That relationship, that addiction that whatever it is it It soothes until it can't. And then what? And so I think as believers, sometimes we are living a little bit on both sides of the fence until we just simply can't, until we're miserable. It will work for a little bit and then it just simply can't work anymore.
ReGina Johnston:Interesting. Well, here's what we want you to know. There's some good news out there. There are some truthful words out there. But there's no other gospel like this gospel that we've been talking about today, this good news, this truth that has the power to save, to heal, to transform, and ultimately to make us entirely whole. And so we hope and pray that we've at least elicited a hunger in you as a listener today, and that you understand that really, the gospel is a necessity for our lives. So let's pray. Lord, thank You. Thank You that the gospel is all about You, Jesus. Thank You that it is freely given to us. I pray for the listeners. I pray that today maybe they've seen their need. Maybe they've felt the desire. Maybe they've heard something to encourage them in a way that they've not been encouraged before. Lord, I pray that by the power of Your Holy Spirit, You would draw them to this Word of truth, to this transforming Word, to this Word that can heal, to this Word that can change our perspective, to this Word that shines brightly in the dark, the dark backdrop of this world that we live in. God, transform today. In Jesus' name, Amen.