"One thing, and only one thing, is necessary for Christian life, righteousness, and freedom. That one thing is the most holy Word of God, the gospel of Christ," Martin Luther
Mark Gali writes on ‘Grace,’ Christianity Today, Oct. 2, ’09:
The Word of God written and preached is first a gift that reveals the crucified Christ, as well as the risen Christ.
When evangelicals have offered the Bible not as a proof text but as the Word that proves and judges and forgives us, that's when our movement has been transformed and been a transforming agent in the world.
The Word of God says the way to start working on the horizontal is to look up, in particular, at the one hanging on the Cross. The place to begin is not more feverish doing but a type of non-doing, acknowledging the complete inadequacy of any doing and the utter powerlessness of the horizontal to fix the horizontal. It means to allow oneself to be borne up by the Word of grace.
Where we stand, in short, is Golgotha, under the shadow of the Cross, a sign of God's judgment on our pretensions and God's forgiveness of our sin.
Grace makes the horizontal possible in a whole new way… In short, it is where the vertical meets and transforms us.
When we meet God in his paradoxical presence, we will once again know that great paradox of the Christian faith: with our focus on the vertical, when the weightlessness of belief becomes for us the weight of glory, that's when we are born again, born in the Word and for the world. This is something that happens once, yes, at one's conversion. But it also happens daily, at one's reconversion each morning and each Sunday. Then we become new creations, blessed with vertical life and energy and grace to do the horizontal thing we are called and gifted to do. [Mark Gali]
When Jesus called the disciples to ‘Remember Me,’ He was calling them to their heart-focus that would transform every aspect of their life.
The Word of God says, 'I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith."' Romans 1:16-17.
Check out this excellent article “In the Beginning- Grace.”
For a further Gospel-centered read “True Spirituality: the Transforming Power of the Gospel.”
