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What is the Romans Road? – Part I

What exactly is the gospel of Jesus Christ? I’ve been a Christian now for 22 years, and until recently I thought I understood the gospel thoroughly.  I’ve shared it and taught it to Christians and non Christians and I’ve even memorized it.  This gospel I’ve learned and taught is summarized within several scriptures in the book of Romans often referred to the Romans Road to salvation.

All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The wages of that sin is death.  Jesus Christ died for that sin even while we were still sinners such that the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ. So that if you believe in your heart in Jesus Christ and if you confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord, you will be saved…anyone who calls on the Lord will not be ashamed.

These scriptural summary of salvation are all found in Paul’s epistle to Romans (Romans 3:23, 6:23a, b, 5:8 and 10:9-10).

But…I now realize that this is only part of ‘the gospel’, this is actually how a person becomes saved, this is step one in reuniting with our creator explained in a few sentences and is useful in helping others to reunite with God if they are ready and inclined to do so.  This however is only part of the story, one subset of a much grander narrative, a larger purpose, a greater reason which explains God’s purpose for his creation and this life we are moving through.

The full gospel of Jesus Christ does include what I summarized above. But there is a much more attractive, much more compelling, much more gripping story that is often neglected and rarely, if ever told to non-Christians.  A broader explanation of the gospel is referred to in Ephesians chapters 1-3 and some scholars believe this is a good summary of the gospel that Paul preached to the gentile world. And which was so effective at converting and building the many gentile churches that we read about in the New Testament.

Writings from people like Frank Viola and Leonard Sweet, T. Austin Sparks, Watchman Nee and the book of Ephesians have helped me to realize that the Apostle Paul had such success because of his gospel. His church planting and conversion of Godless gentiles to faithful Christ followers was a fruit of his gospel. His message however is not distinctly recorded in most of his epistles because most of his letters were to existing bodies of believers and were written to deal with specific church problems. His gospel preaching was not recorded readily, some bible scholars believe that the closest we have to a recording of his gospel is found in the book of Ephesians. Ephesians was a general circuit letter that was distributed to several churches and is thus considered the closest record we have of Paul’s general gospel.

I have broke down and analyzed Ephesians 1-3 and found that in this letter Paul first told what God did, then he shared at least three reasons that he did it, then he shared at least 8 different realities that God made possible within Jesus Christ.

This gospel is compelling to anyone because it causes our life, our very existence and it makes sense of the reality that we see around us. It connects us with God’s original purpose rather than the “you are headed for hell and here is how to get out of it.” Most are not ready to hear that. The gospel as preached by Paul, explains the universe that we live in and observe, while it reconciles God to man.

Gods story is mesmerizing, it is life-changing and it must be told! Everything makes sense and lines up once we understand who Jesus Christ is, why he made us and this universe and how we fit into everything.

Read part II of this article to see this gospel referred to in Ephesians.

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The Astounding Gospel to the Gentiles

I think we’ve short-changed the gospel of Jesus Christ, the gospel is not merely mankind’s ticket out of hell, it is the great plan..the great purpose of God which motivated him to create and which he began before he ever said ‘let there be light’. God is not trying to bribe humanity to get saved, the gospel is an offer of peace with God and an offer of reconnection to the purpose God has had all along.

The gospel does include the plan of salvation as found in Romans but it is much bigger and I think more fascinating and compelling than many realize. When we believe in Jesus Christ and accept God’s plan, his mercy and grace are immediately put on display as several things suddenly become true for us.  Most importantly the gospel is not all about us, instead the gospel is all about what God has done, is doing and will do through Jesus Christ. If we all rejected him, he could raise up a people from the stones.

I believe if more non-Christians, and many people who have been raised in church and have learned to tune out all spiritual talk were to hear the rest of the story told in a way that opens their understanding, they would more readily believe in and find a new love and fascination for Jesus Christ.  There would be many more disciples of this amazing, matchless creator and lover of mankind, Jesus Christ.

The book of Ephesians is unique to the Pauline letters in that it was written to a general audience and not to a specific church to solve a specific problem.  As a result of this most scholars believe that it contains a more general overview of Paul’s gospel to the gentiles.  Ephesians was still written to Christians however the basic principles found in Paul’s message revealing Jesus Christ to a general gentile audience can be seen in Ephesians 1-3 (1) Francis FoulkesIMG_0308[1]

So here it is, I will attempt to write the great gospel of God according to Ephesians 1-3 (and a little from Colossians 1)… my paraphrase and rephrasing to be shared with non-believers. Feel free to share this post or just what is written below.

There is something of great importance that I must share about why we exist, about the very meaning of life on earth. I feel compelled to reveal this to all willing to listen.

Human beings…you and I, are God’s chief creation, his chief work of art. God made us in his own image in order to expand the mutual love and fellowship that the father, the son and the spirit had together before creation.  He wanted to expand this love into a created universe, it pleased God to create a family to dwell with and within on a created earth.

It was we who quickly turned our back on him, the entire human race, we chose sin and in doing so we chose death, humans chose hostility and war and rebellion.   

Amazingly God decided to make peace available freely through Jesus Christ.  He did this for several reasons:

In order to create a redeemed people who would be a display of God’s mercy to rest of mankind, believers in Jesus Christ become a display of Gods grace and mercy to the rest of mankind.

He also did this to create a people to display his wisdom to all the authorities, men and spirits, good and evil, in unseen realms.

He also did this to make himself a dwelling place on earth within the people who would believe on Jesus Christ. A people to dwell within who have specific things and tasks he prepared in advance for them to accomplish.

When we believe in Jesus Christ we become the dwelling place of God on earth, all over the earth, displaying him, it is now him living all over the earth through us just as he planned.

When we believe in Jesus Christ and gather together in his name we become set apart to God, we literally become God’s dwelling place, his new growing temple, his new home and his growing family on earth.

When we believe in Jesus Christ we find new peace with God where there was hostility and death, we are made members of God’s family, and we can become near to God because of Jesus’ blood.

Now we even can fully know God and his thoughts and live by his divine life, not only our own life. We can approach him directly without a go-between, and we can know his great love, and be filled with the fullness of God; his great power is on display in us, the same power of God that was on display when Jesus Christ was resurrected from death.

When we believe in Jesus Christ we become a new kind of human being, not a Jew, not a gentile but a new race, a human with God inside and united to the rest of Christ’s body.

When we believe in Jesus Christ our inheritance becomes great, beyond what we can imagine, and we are literally become seated with Jesus Christ in heaven.

Jesus Christ is much bigger, much more involved with and is the culmination of everything in heaven and earth,  all of history, all of war time and peace time, all love, all politics, all wisdom, all knowledge, all science, all ideas and inventions, all the cosmos, time itself, everything was made for Jesus Christ, exists within Jesus Christ, and is heading to Jesus Christ.  He is the all-consuming creator and holder of the universe.

Romans Road to salvation…is what most consider to be the gospel, it is powerful and true but is actually the end of the gospel story, and is the part where mankind is ready to reunite with God, all of the following are scriptures found in the book of Romans and flow together.

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, the wages of sin is death, but God demonstrated His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. The free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved, for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. for “WHOEVER WILL CALL ON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED.” For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God…

Love him or leave him, you decide, but I can not get enough of him.

Please contact me if you’d like to talk about this at collierak@me.com

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The Fruitful Body of Jesus Christ

“Be Fruitful and Multiply”

I love the words used in the command to be fruitful which seen repeatedly in Genesis. Not only in Genesis, fruitfulness is a theme seen throughout scripture, culminating in the two analogies of a vine and a body in the gospels.

Genesis 1:28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

Notice the strong language used around this command…fruitful, increase, fill, subdue, rule over.

9 (18)

words related to fruitful

exuberant adj. profuse

abundant , affluent, copious, effusive, exaggerated, excessive, fertile, lavish, lush, luxuriant, opulent, overflowing, plenteous, plentiful, prolific, rampant, rich, superabundant, superfluous, teeming

I think that Christians should be the most productive and fruitful people on the planet. Whatever our vocation, whatever our gifting, whatever our hobbies, Christians are equipped to be fruit-producing machines in the earth.  Every Christian should produce profuse amounts of fruit for the following reasons.

  1. We are literally the Body of Christ on earth, what he does, we do, when he is fruitful it is seen in our activity, see 1 Corinthians 12:27
  2. We have access to the very vine of life (Jesus Christ), see John 15:5
  3. We have unique access to the stores of wisdom and knowledge through our link to Christ, see Proverbs 20:5
  4. We are commanded and expected to produce fruit by the Lord, see Matthew 21:43.

What can be considered fruit:

I think fruit can be considered several things including the result of spiritual gifting’s.  Things like psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, gospel messages with those in our world, sermons, teachings, healings, words of encouragement, words of knowledge, words of wisdom, prophecies, blogs, books.

Fruit can also include the results of our natural gifting’s used and seen in our vocation.  Days of hard work and accomplishments, witty ideas and inventions, general productivity.  This fruit can be considered everything of value to our economy whether as highly valuable employees or as business owners.

Common Pitfalls in Producing Fruit:

I can write about pitfalls from experience,  I have struggled with the following:

  1. The low expectations of others, whether it be employers or pastors, those above us we feel we are serving can have low or no expectations on our lives, because of this we settle for doing little to nothing by way of producing fruit. The bottom line is we ultimately have to answer to God for our fruit level, not man. God has high and lofty expectations on his body, he created amazing and talented “fruit” machines filled with his own life, we should not blame the low or misguided expectations others for our own lack of fruit.
  2. Confusion about calling and vocation.   The best way that I know to resolve this confusion is to continuously seek God and follow our strengths.  As we grow and mature our calling and our gifts usually become more evident. This takes longer for some than it does for others, and that is ok. Some of us don’t hit our fruitful prime until late in life, others very early, and this timing difference is perfectly fine.
  3. Fruit production is not a competition, like all fruit trees we produce different fruit at different times of the year and at different times of our lives.  We should never watch other people and compare ourselves. This is not fair to ourselves and is not fair to the people we are secretly competing with.

So if you are believer in Jesus Christ be fruitful, be abundant, be effusive, be exaggerated, be lavish, be overflowing, be plentiful, be prolific, be superabundant, be superfluous and be teeming with good fruit because after all you are connected to Jesus Christ, to all the stores of wisdom and knowledge.  Your head, your Lord has equipped you and expects abundant good fruit from you. 

In what ways have you been fruitful recently?

In what areas would you like to be more fruitful?

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