“Just one thing: live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.”
— Philippians 1:27
The gospel is good news. It is a story of how Jesus — God who became a man — came to the Earth and was executed to save us from an eternity in Hell. He died, not because of anything that He had done, but rather, because of all the things we had done. We deserve to be the ones to die for the things we’ve done. Instead, He died in our place. He volunteered as tribute.
When we realize this truth, what are we to do with it? When it finally sinks in that Jesus did what He did so that we might be able to stand before a holy God as spotless as a newborn lamb, how should we respond? When someone gives you so great a gift, what do you do?
You’ve seen movies. You’ve read books. So many times there are dire situations and one character (the “save-er”) will save another characters life (the “save-ee”). What is the thing that the “save-ee” so often says to the “save-er”? It’s usually something along the lines of “Thank you so much! I owe you my life.” In some situations, depending on the person or the culture they are in, the “save-ee” literally decides to spend the rest of their life serving the “save-er” because of the great gift they have been given.
This is how we should respond to Jesus. He quite literally saved our lives from eternal torment by taking our place upon that cross. What else could we do but spend the rest of our days serving Him?
In Philippians 1:27, Paul says “Just one thing: live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.” This is how we can serve Jesus forever. We have a story, the gospel mentioned earlier, and it’s our job to live a life worthy of that story.
When we do that, we not only honor God and the gospel story, but we end up showing the world what love, grace, truth and hope can look like in a persons life. When we live a life worthy of the gospel, our lives testify.