Eleven Different Herbs and Spices

Over the last week I have been contemplating the idea of the “simplicity of the Gospel.”  I came upon this view in my personal journey through and questioning of just about everything I thought that I believed in my Christian walk.  As I have mentioned before, the battle that my wife and I have been facing had forced me to take a serious look at everything I stood for.  My thought being that if we are to beat this attack upon her health, then I needed to be very secure and unshakably trusting in what I understand to be God’s truth on the matter.

What I have discovered is that not much has changed in what I believe, but yet everything is different!  Sound confusing?  Well it's not, really.  I still firmly believe that it is God’s will to heal all, as Jesus demonstrated through His actions when He physically ministered to people on this earth, that God’s Word is the ultimate truth on every matter and for every situation, and that God the Father has established certain spiritual rules that govern how things work for us according to His kingdom principles and authority.

But what I have come to intimately learn, as I have been writing about lately, is that all of this is to be seasoned with copious, heaping helpings of His love as demonstrated through His grace toward each of us.  I am coming to believe that because He loves us so much, that everything that I believe in His Word is not always as black and white as I used to think.  Please don’t get me wrong here.  I still believe that there is right and wrong, and specific do’s and don’ts, but yet they must be filtered through His grace.

With all this in mind, I am coming to understand that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is much more simple than many of us have made it out to be!  I believe that God wants us to simply take His Word for what it says and not try to turn it into a complicated series of steps or formulas that must be followed in order for It to work in our lives.  I think that He would have us to take it at face value (but not out of context) and:

¹⁾ Read it,

²⁾ come to Know it personally and intimately,

³⁾ Obey it, and  

⁴⁾ Expect it to do what it says it will do!

As my sweet wife and I have walked along the path that we currently find ourselves on, we have received all kinds of “counsel” from well-meaning people close to us that has been rather limiting with a sort of “my way or the highway” mentality, implying that their way is the ONLY way that God will work in our situation.  Be it one particular manner of receiving her healing, the dependence on natural foods, vitamins, and eleven different herbs and spices (oophs… sorry, that sounds like a Colonel Sanders ad… forget the herbs and spices… but you get my point!) or that there is simply nothing left for me to do but hope and pray that she gets some faith before it’s too late!

But you know… as I continually pour through the Word, I see a God that loves my wife with a love that has no measure, no end and a countless array of ways to reach her!  To put it rather simply, God tells us that His “Love never fails” and that it “Never comes to an end.” (I Corinthians 13:8 NKJV/God’s Word ©)  And to me, that is the bottom line and foundation of the ENTIRE gospel!

I’m sure that I’ll have more thoughts on the simplicity of the gospel in the coming days as I continue to seek Him on this subject.  But for now, I would challenge each of you to consider just how simple and straight forward His Word is.  Read it from the viewpoint of how much He LOVES YOU!  Don’t make it complicated, just accept His love and with heaping helpings of GRACE, share it with someone else.  Have a great day.  Stay in tune to His Word, and keep asking yourself… “What am I expecting today?”