The outgrow never we gospel. What’s wrong with that sentence? It violates the rules of grammar and syntax. Writers may sometimes break rules for effect but if they want to be understood, they’ll never graduate beyond grammar.
The “grammar” of the Christian life is the gospel. Paul said the gospel is that “Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said. He was seen by Peter and then by the Twelve” (1 Corinthians 15:3-5). This good news that Jesus died and rose again to forgive our sins is what the gospel is built on.
It’s important that we never graduate beyond the gospel. It’s tempting to think that believing in Jesus is necessary only for starting the Christian life, and that we grow in Him by practicing spiritual disciplines such as meditation, memorization, journaling, and joining accountability or Bible-study groups. These are all important practices, but they’ll draw us to Jesus only as they point us to the gospel.
The closer we come to Jesus, the more we grasp what it means to be set free from sin and death by God’s grace. If we forget this—if we think we’re somehow earning our way to God through our spiritual disciplines—we’ll lose our grip on the gospel, just as Peter did when he shamed the Gentiles for not keeping the Jewish practice of circumcision (see Galatians 2:14).
It’s good for us to have favorite practices that draw us closer to Jesus. But may those methods never excite us more than what Jesus has already done. Let’s look at that opening sentence again, this time with proper grammar: We never outgrow the gospel.
NLT 365-day reading plan passage for today: Acts 25:1-27
More:
Read Philippians 1:1-29 to see how the gospel transformed Paul’s life and attitude.
Next:
What spiritual discipline draws you closer to Jesus? How does it remind you of what He’s already done for you?
BearPair on November 14, 2015 at 1:46 am
Amen, Mike… you can stay on that soapbox all day long!
Gary Shultz on November 14, 2015 at 7:28 am
Your killing me here. A master of script I have never been, but the Master has washed away my sin…. There was purpose to Christ reminding us “do this in remembrance of me”, so it is good to be taken to the roots, the founding of our faith. That is a history lesson we have been asked not to forget and we can’t if we expect to be citizens of Christ’s eternity. I figure my grammar either makes you laugh or cry, maybe both. Will that be corrected in heaven? Thanks
Mike Wittmer on November 14, 2015 at 11:40 am
Nice second line, Gary. You’re a poet and you don’t know it…. (Now it’s my turn to apologize!)