The Gospel Woven Through a Beautiful Story
Children love a good story; especially one that is filled with suspense and a riveting plot. Typically, I think of this book as one to be read during the Christmas season; however, I am rethinking that idea. The reason: this book tells the gospel message beginning in Genesis and takes us through the birth of Jesus and concludes with the resurrection. It is beautifully illustrated and captures the essence of our need for a Savior. The title of this book is “One Wintry Night” written by Ruth Bell Graham. I highly recommend it as the author tells the gospel to a little boy who arrived at her doorstep after being caught in a snowstorm. The setting is at Piney Cove; the story is about God’s redeeming love.
Speaking of God’s love, do you understand the gospel well enough to answer your child’s questions about why he or she needs a Savior? This is where Genesis 3 enters and explains the fall of man. Scripture tells us that we all (including our children) enter the world as infants and while alive physically; we are dead spiritually. Just as a baby inherits his physical features from his birth parents; an infant’s spiritual inheritance is found “in Adam.” Our beautiful children are born in need of a heart transplant (Romans 3:23). No amount of good works will earn our way into eternal life with God.
Why is there confusion around the gospel message? Is it because there is an adversary roaming around like a lion seeking to destroy? Satan tempted Adam and Eve in the form of a snake, and he has been on the move whispering lies, tempting mankind, and creating deceptive plots ever since.
Have you thought about taking the Gospel message back to the Garden? (It will put to rest once and for all the fact that no amount of good works can satisfy a Holy God). When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden, sin entered the human race; therefore, each baby is born with a sin problem because Holy God and sinful man cannot have fellowship. No amount of good works, knowledge of religion, nor morality can satisfy the holiness of God. “Your iniquities have separated you from God; and your sins have hidden His face from you” (Isaiah 59:2). In God’s justice, He cannot overlook sin and so we rightly deserve His judgement, eternal separation. However, because of God’s great love, He provided a way for our sin penalty to be paid in full. You couldn’t pay that debt; I couldn’t pay that sin debt. The remedy for our sin was paid by Jesus – the sinless God-man who was sent to earth to die in our place (Romans 5:8). He atoned for mankind’s sin condition; He was buried and rose from the dead on the third day. He offers forgiveness and new life (new life in Christ) to all who repent and trust in Jesus for the payment of sin.
Each person must respond personally to God’s offer of Jesus’s payment for sin (John 1:12). How do we do this? Through faith (Ephesians 2:8-9) in the finished work of Jesus on the cross. How do we know that we have eternal life? God’s Word, 1 John 5:11-13, “And the witness is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, in order that you may KNOW that you have eternal life.”
The gospel is not one and done in terms of our Christian walk of faith. Tedd Tripp in “Shepherding a Child’s Heart” helps us, and I quote, “Let’s rethink the matter of getting your children saved. Perhaps one of the problems with this perspective is that it looks for a major spiritual event of salvation and misses the spiritual process of nurturing your children.” Faith is not just the way to get saved, it is the lifeline of Christian living. I need the gospel every day as I walk by faith. May we disciple our children accordingly.