Hello everybody, welcome back! Ministry this weekend is going to be so fun! My team and I are headed to La Montana Christian Camp, i’m not sure what we will be doing there, but I know it will be great!
This blog post is going to be a little bit different. I recently purchased a documentary titled “American Gospel: Christ Alone”. I had heard about it and wanted to watch it. I searched it on youtube and watched a shortened version, and knew I needed to watch the full movie. This documentary has been so helpful during my time on the race so far. Everyone here has their own thoughts and beliefs. Sometimes those thoughts and believe can make us but heads. But I have found that a lot of Bible reading and watching American Gospel has helped me get a firm grasp on what I believe the Gospel is and why its important. This movie makes a clear argument for why Christ is the center of the gospel. In a time when even Christians don’t know what each other believe, things like this are so helpful. It puts emphasis on God’s sovereignty, salvation being given, God’s goodness(not ours), and brings to light some misconstrued beliefs that faith healers believe. Here are some notes of mine:
-you can’t earn salvation by being a good person
-Salvation is not based on performance
-We are naturally rebels to God.
-We aren’t good enough, but God was good for us
-Justification by faith alone in Christ alone.
-Good works are the fruit of our salvation
-We are reconciled to God through Jesus Christ
-The gospel is for EVERYONE, “if you sinned yesterday you need the gospel today”- American Gospel
and sooooo much more!
I’m now going to elaborate on some of these. Throughout the movie, they stress the importance of knowing that only God is good. We are bad compared to christ. (Matthew 19:17)
“We are unable to be good because the Jesus’ standard of goodness means to be morally perfect”-Ray Comfort. We are now justified because God himself took our sin and paid for it for us, and we have repented and believed in him, that is the beauty of the gospel.
Dr. Bryan Chapell speaks in the movie about how the people were given law keepers, judges, sacrifices, prophets, priests and kings, and nothing works. So through out the story of the Bible, God is preparing a better law keeper, a better judge, a better sacrifice, a better prophet, a better priest, a better king. Then we get Jesus.
They also speak a great deal about false prophets, faith healers and the prosperity gospel. I learned that these people attempt to demote God and deify man. As well as assert that it is God’s will to heal people every time. In the movie, Dr. Steven J. Lawson comments “God has purposes in our suffering, to humble us, to conform us into the image of Christ, to wean us off the world, to purify us, to help us identify with others who are suffering”. We can understand that God can and does heal people today, but I believe he does that according to his sovereign will.
The point of this blog post is to share about a documentary that has been really beneficial to my christian walk. Thank y’all for taking the time to read this! I love you all and cannot wait to share some pictures with you guys!
