GospelboundSample

Living Gospelbound

Christians aren’t exempt from worrying about our culture—otherwise Jesus would not have needed to tell us not to be anxious (Matthew 6:25). If anything, Christians these days may have even more reason to feel unbalanced and a little scared. Why? 

Not because of our faith—there isn’t anything wrong with God or his plan of salvation. We know his love and his grace and his beauty. And not really because of sin. We already know our world is broken. We know people are blinded and twisted. It’s been that way since Eden.

No, the source of our anxiety in America is where those two—our unchanging faith and our changing culture—rub together. Many of us aren’t used to being misunderstood, to being opposed, to having to defend what we thought was long-standing common sense. 

So we tend to spend a lot of time worrying about things, like elections and court decisions, that we cannot control. And then we respond with actions, such as complaining on social media, that cannot make much difference. 

What’s the result? Look around! Everyone feels like the last soldier of sanity, facing an overwhelming enemy who is irrational, evil, and hell-bent on the destruction of all we hold holy. This is why we can condemn whole swaths of people—so long as they seem distant and faceless. And, in the back of our mind, we know they’re doing the same thing to us. 

The story changes, though, when we’re talking about real people, people we know and love. It’s why you can hate a political party but love your niece, who voted for them. It’s why you can feel anxious and angry with the country as a whole but still love your neighbors. 

That’s a clue for where we should turn our attention. We want to live in a way we’re calling gospelbound. Gospelbound Christians embrace the future, live with honor, suffer with joy, care for the weak, set another seat at the table, love their enemies, and give a way their freedom. They are relevant, countercultural, and timeless. They challenge us to ask: How can we all live this way?

Because it’s in binding ourselves to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and in living it out, that we find we never needed to be anxious in the first place.

Father, you do not call me to be anxious about the world. You do not call me to condemn others. You call me to love my enemies, care for the weak, set another seat at the table. Help me to do so. Amen.