What is the Gospel?
When it's just you and your thoughts, you've sometimes felt it: the feeling that your life is disappointing, futile, tedious or senseless. A quiet desperation. Then comes the confusion. You rummage around your box of experiences, grabbing onto one interpretation of reality after another — your intuition tells you're missing something.
The Creator is not satisfied with leaving you in this state of unproductive uncertainty. The Eternal Spirit became a very real, very vulnerable person—Jesus—in order to identify with what you experience. He is interested in you—in what you think, in what you feel, in what you do. God intends for you to live a life of freedom, abundance and significance.
Have you noticed that we all seem to carry some kind of guilt?
Sin, or missing the mark, is inevitable; it’s a part of who we are as humans. That doesn't make it right and it doesn’t mean we won’t suffer the consequences. In fact, if the sin issue in our lives is not dealt with, the temporal and eternal consequences are devastating.
The Creator wants to take your burdens and respond to your confusion.
The starting block of faith is the irreducible component of individual responsibility:
Recognizing that you are separated from God — that you’ve missed His best for you, that you have sinned. Admit this.
How to Proceed
A thoughtful step of faith has three vital components: it includes knowledge, which grows into conviction, which grows into trust.
This whole process can be done through reading the Bible and through prayer—simple communication with the Eternal. Pray and ask Jesus to be the one who rescues you from the reality of sin. Pray that God will make Himself known to you, and believe that He will. Then entrust yourself to Him.
1. Faith includes knowledge
We are not asked to trust someone about whom we know nothing. Investigate.
2. Faith includes conviction
We are not only attracted to what faith is about, but we have become sure of its truth. Believe.
3. Faith includes trust
Having faith isn’t merely being convinced of something; it is the entire person being committed to someone—Jesus Christ. Commit.
So What Now?
We at Calvary Chapel Montreal Regeneration don't have all the answers. We can't give you a recipe. We can't give you a timeline but we can point you to a starting point. The person of the God-man Jesus.
Jesus said, "Come to Me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. All of you, take up My yoke and learn from Me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for yourselves. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light." — Matthew 11:28-30
The place to start is the Bible. It’s a complete, inspiring, challenging, and above all an inerrant (without error) manual for living. When you make the effort to discover the intent and content of Scripture, you'll find answers of hope and purpose in the heart of the creator.
Now
Communicate
Talk to the Creator, though it may seem contradictory to communicate with someone you can't perceive. You'll discover a lot about God and yourself in the process.
Find someone who knows about these truths. We invite you to come visit Calvary Chapel Montreal Regeneration where we talk about this every week.
Connect with us on Sundays or during one of our weekly ministries.