I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. Phil. 1:3-6
Dear heavenly Father, this Scripture fuels my gratitude this morning—especially for the women and men you’ve used over the years to bring me into a greater understanding and experience of the gospel. For more gospel means more freedom and joy, sanity and peace.
Thank you for friends who help me understand the lyric of the gospel—its rich theology. As a young convert my simplistic mantra was, “Don’t give me theology; just give me Jesus”—sincere sentiment, shoddy sensibility. Thank you for patient teachers who have opened the Scriptures and have shown me the real Jesus—the Messiah who lived and died in my place; the second Adam, not my second chance—my perfect righteousness, not merely my moral model.
Thank you for friends who help me experience the music of the gospel—its life-giving liberty, its healing melody, and its soul-engaging joy. Now I know you to be the God who greatly delights in your people, who quiets us with his love, and who rejoices over us with singing; the Father of mercies and God of all comfort. Theology has become doxology in my soul.
Thank you for friends who teach me the dance of the gospel—its missional implications and way of life. I now see the whole world, and every place in the culture and community, as the dance floor of grace. For you created all things and are making all things new through Jesus. Thank you for my dance instructors.
Lord Jesus, you crushed the head of the serpent for us, and you will soon crush him under our own feet as well (Rom. 16:20). The gospel of the kingdom is infiltrating and transforming every sphere of life; your Bride is being redeemed from the nations; and our future is so far beyond all that we can ask or imagine. I am most of all thankful for you, for you are the gospel. So very Amen I pray, in your grace-full and glorious name.