Tag: gospel

  • General Revelation: Why No One Can Claim They Didn’t Know

    I have a habit I did not set out to form. Most mornings, before the day gets loud, I end up outside for a few minutes. Not for any spiritual reason at first. Coffee. Fresh air. Quiet. But at some point I started noticing that the quiet was not actually quiet. Something out there was already talking.

    A bird. The light changing. The same trees that were bare a few weeks ago full again. And every time, the same thought: this did not happen by accident, and whoever is responsible for it has not stopped paying attention.

    That is not poetry. That is theology. And Scripture has been saying it since the beginning.

    God Made Sure You Would Know

    The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and the expanse is declaring the work of His hands. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. Psalm 19:1-2

    Creation has been preaching since Genesis and has not taken a day off. You do not need a seminary degree to hear it. You need to step outside.

    Job said the same thing from a very different place. He was not in a season of quiet morning coffee. He was in ruins. And still he pointed to the birds and the beasts and the earth itself and said, ask them. They know something.

    Who among all these does not know that the hand of Yahweh has done this, in whose hand is the life of every living thing, and the breath of all the flesh of man? Job 12:9-10

    This is not a soft comfort. It is a hard fact. God has made Himself known through what He made, and He did it on purpose.

    I have written about how creation points us to a God who is near and who cares for what He has made. Creation Is a Signpost

    No One Is Without Evidence

    Here is where it gets serious.

    Paul did not write Romans 1 to comfort anyone. He wrote it to close every exit.

    For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, both His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. Romans 1:20

    Without excuse. Not without opportunity. Not without enough information. Without excuse.

    From the smallest particle yet to be discovered to the edge of an expanding universe no one has mapped, God is being declared. The smaller we look, the larger the claim becomes. The further we search, the less accidental any of it is. To look at creation and conclude there is no God is not a neutral position. Scripture calls it willful. Romans 1:18 calls it suppressing the truth.

    Some Judgment Day, no one will be able to say to the LORD, I didn’t know.

    What You Do With What You Know

    General revelation, the knowledge of God available to every human being through creation, is enough to leave us without excuse. It is not enough to save us. For that, God went further. He sent His Son. He gave us His Word. He sent His Spirit to open what our own effort never could reach.

    But it starts here. Outside. Any morning. With a bird and the light changing and the quiet that is not actually quiet.

    The question creation puts to every person who has ever lived is not whether God exists. That question has already been answered. The question is what you will do with what you already know.

    Be blessed

    Kevin

    You might also like: Seeing heaven more clearly every day

    SUMMARY

    God has embedded the knowledge of His existence and care into every corner of creation, from a bird call on a quiet morning to the expanding edge of the universe, leaving every person without excuse. General revelation is enough to condemn but not enough to save, which is why God went further and sent His Son, His Word, and His Spirit.

    TAKEAWAY

    Psalm 19, Job 12, and Romans 1 together establish that creation is not passive scenery but active testimony to God’s existence, power, and care. 

    General revelation is universal and intentional — God made sure no one would be without evidence, and Scripture calls willful blindness exactly what it is. 

    Creation leaves us without excuse but not without hope; for salvation God went further, which makes the gospel not a backup plan but the completion of what creation started.

    The importance of reading the Bible. It’s your primary truth source.

  • The Gospel – the best news you will ever hear

    You know the silence that falls right before you open an envelope, or pick up the phone, when you have already braced for the worst. Most of the time the news matches the dread. But every now and then it does not. Every now and then you brace yourself and find out the test was clear, or the debt was settled, or the answer was yes, and for a second you just stand there rereading it, because good news that size is hard to trust on the first pass.

    That mix of disbelief and relief is about the closest thing I know, in ordinary life, to what the Bible calls the gospel.

    The word itself simply means good news. But you cannot understand why it is good until you understand the news that came before it, and that part is not pleasant. Scripture does not soften it. All of us, every last one, have fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). Not just the people we point to on the news. Us. Our sin is not a smudge to wipe off. It is a debt we cannot pay, and the wages of that debt are death (Romans 6:23).

    If the story stopped there, it would just be bad news, true and unbearable. But it does not stop there.

    Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures. He was buried, and He was raised on the third day, according to the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). That is the gospel in its smallest form, four facts that changed everything. And Paul will not let us read past the cost of it without feeling it. God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). Not after we cleaned ourselves up. While we were still enemies. He paid a debt He did not owe, for people who could never repay Him.

    Here is where the gospel parts ways with every other religion and every self-improvement plan you have ever tried. It is by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2:8-9). You do not earn your way into this. You do not balance the scales with enough good deeds to outweigh the bad. The debt was already paid. The only question left is whether you will receive the gift.

    As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name (John 1:12). That word receive is doing a lot of work. It is not a transaction you negotiate. It is a gift you open. Faith is simply reaching out your hand and taking what Christ already purchased at the cross.

    And what happens next is not a slight improvement. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature, the old things passed away, behold, new things have come (2 Corinthians 5:17). You are not patched up. You are remade. Rescued from the domain of darkness and transferred to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom you have redemption, the forgiveness of sins (Colossians 1:13-14). That is not a metaphor for self-help. That is a change of citizenship, paid for in blood, sealed by an empty tomb.

    Some people can tell you the exact day they stopped bracing for bad news and finally believed the good news was real. I hope you have a day like that to point back to as well, the day you stopped trying to pay a debt you could never settle and simply received what Christ already finished.

    If you have never reached out your hand for that gift, today is a good day to start. Tell Him you know the bad news is true of you, and ask Him to make the good news true of you too. He has already done the hard part.

    If you have already received it, do not let the wonder of it go stale. Read those four facts from 1 Corinthians 15 again slowly. Let them surprise you the way they did the first day.

    Hallelu Yah (Praise God)

    Be blessed,

    Kevin

    More about the good news of the gospel.