SummerLINK Raleigh: The Power of the Gospel

I have been thinking long and hard about what to write about for this SummerLINK blog post. We are just over a month in to the work we’ve been doing with SummerLINK Raleigh, and it has been amazing to see the work that God is doing in our community, and even outside our community:

• We have participated in Equip Nights at the houses of different pastors and leaders at Open Door, learning more about their ministries and what they do for our church family
• We have had a weekend soccer camp in a nearby neighborhood, sharing the gospel and running around with a bunch of kids
• We have had our VBS camp called Power Camp for our elementary school kids, teaching them about God and His overflowing love and power
• We just returned from our youth camp called Creed where we went through Acts and learned what it means to live a missional lifestyle for the Kingdom of God
• We are getting ready to send a small team up to Boston to spend time with Redemption Hill ministering to their area

And we’re only half way through the summer!! I can’t wait to see what else God does through us…ALL of us SummerLINK interns at our different locations.
Something that I have become so much more aware of this summer is the power of the gospel in everyday life. I took a moment to think about what the gospel really is and how influential it is to Christians, and you can’t simply take one moment to think about the magnitude of the gospel. Pastors spend anywhere between forty-five minutes to an hour teaching their congregation small portions of the gospel on a weekly basis, and it takes them hours upon hours to get all of the information together!

Yet the gospel is so much more than just reading and understanding the Bible, and hearing a sermon on a weekly basis. The gospel is actually living out the teachings that are in the Bible. It is so easy for us to pick up the Bible and read an incredible parable of Jesus, or read about Paul laying down some spiritual conviction on the church of Corinth, or read about what it takes to be leader in a church and say to ourselves, “That’s so great, we totally need to do more of that!” and then do absolutely nothing. We have too many lazy Christians in our church. Unfortunately, I am one of them.

I don’t write this blog with the mindset that I’m the greatest Christian. I write this blog with conviction on my heart because I have done a horrible job of sharing the gospel. I have not fully submitted to the awesome power of the gospel. I just read Thom Rainer’s article, “Seven Characteristics of Highly Evangelical Christians,” and as I read through the article I caught myself thinking, “Amen! That’s good stuff,” yet most of those characteristics are greatly lacking in my own spiritual life. I could turn this blog post into me analyzing how bad my spiritual life is, and as great as that could be for my own sanctification, it would quickly make this blog post all the more less entertaining. But here is where the beauty is…here is where the power of the gospel comes into play: we serve a merciful, gracious God.

I cannot begin to express how thankful I am that we serve a merciful, gracious God, who loves us unconditionally. If that weren’t the case, I would have my one-way ticket to a very horrible place. Yet God still chooses to forgive even after every mistake I make.

I have learned a lot of things over the past month or so. All have been encouraging, challenging, and even convicting in some way or another, and that’s what I love about the power of the gospel. That’s what I love of discipleship. We as Christians are constantly learning more about the gospel and about who God is. We will never stop learning. Even when we think we have it all figured out, God will come and pull the carpet out from under us and knock on our backside.

I pray that whoever reads this post, or this blog as a whole, is encouraged. The gospel is a powerful, beautiful thing that can radically change your life if you’re willing to take the necessary steps to follow Jesus Christ.