Preaching to Yourself.

a daily discipline to live life to the full.

At our house church a few weeks ago, someone brought up the challenge of preaching the gospel to yourself every day. To be honest, I wasn’t too excited about it. In my puffed-up state with heavy pride on my shoulders, I thought, “I know the gospel, I don’t need to preach it to myself every day.”

Yet, since it was a group consensus, it went on my list of daily disciplines.

The first day I stood in front of the mirror to brush my hair and wash my face and I started with the simple words, “God created the world.”

And something happened.

By the end, my shoulders were lighter, a smile came to my lips, and I repeated these words, “Because of Jesus, I get to live in the fullness of peace, the fullness of joy, and the fullness of power. He came so I don’t have to have ANY anxiety, ANY fear, or ANY insecurity. I am full of hope and full of love, and I get to share that with everyone around me.”

Something shifted. My day was filled with joy, my energy spiked, my headache healed, and I felt an easiness guiding my day.

The next day I finished those simple words and I walked out of the bathroom with a whole new perspective. I stepped out to help people I normally wouldn’t have and saw answers to audacious prayers I often wouldn’t dare to ask. My day was not consumed with thoughts of doubt or worry. I caught myself filling my day with prayer.

The next morning I forgot. My alarm didn’t go off and I rushed to the day’s activities. At moments, worry took over. Other times I found myself exhausted, timid, or self-focused.

I realized that every day is so inundated with opportunities for selfishness, worry, and fear that the message of the gospel is needed for me to start each morning in faith, hope, and love.

I realized this wasn’t about adding another religious activity to my daily routine. This was about the message I claim to live by being at the forefront of my mind as I encounter all the opposing messages each day.

We get enough messages to throw us into despair on the average day. Watching the news alone can do that, not to mention the 4,000-10,000 ads the average American sees. Add on an hour or two of scrolling and we’re not doing our mental state a favor with the amount of messages we take in that are anything but renewing our mind.

When we hear the word, “gospel” we probably start thinking of this little phrase, “Jesus died on the cross for your sins.”

It’s all great and true, but most of us really can’t explain in ordinary language what that means: Why Jesus had to die, what that means for my life, and what “sins” really are.

If the word gospel means “good news” what is the good news of a man dying on our behalf? If we look at the Bible, it seems to be a much bigger deal than just a destination of heaven after death or punishment for our wrongs in this life.

For me, I had to come to grips with the fact that I was gospel illiterate.

I couldn’t truly explain the message of Jesus in my own words. There was so much “Christianese” that it lost the power of the message. When you use enough big words that are culturally prescribed, they don’t mean as much.

I began to write the story of Jesus in my own words and realized I hadn’t truly understood the narrative I have claimed to live by for the past 10 years.

It was humbling.

As I wrote it out, I began to realize that if I truly believed some of the things I claim to believe, my life would completely change.

Jesus says things like, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do.” (John 14:12)

I don’t know about you, but considering I believe that Jesus did rise again from death, literally and not metaphorically, that is a big feat. Greater things? We’re talking about a guy who healed the deaf and blind here.

He says things like, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest…For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28) Do I actually live in such a way where the burdens of life feel light?

All this to say, I greatly underestimate what kind of life with Jesus is possible.

Each day as I sluggishly make my way to the bathroom to get ready for the day, I awake my soul to the message that is all too forgotten: Jesus changes everything.

But as I make my way through the story I remind myself of how:

God created the world. Every culture that ever existed on planet Earth has believed in a higher power, but the God of the Bible is not one that smites humans for their wrongdoing and watches the lives of human beings from a distance.

He created the world to have a relationship with us, to delight in him, and vice versa. It’s why we feel interconnected to something deep within us when we hike a mountain range or watch a cotton candy sky. We may not realize it, but in these moments we are delighting in God and the world he created.

But we often choose things contrary to how God designed them to be. Everyone knows it too. We feel things are not okay, and there are things in all of us that add to it, yet it all seems out of our control: our selfishness, addictions, depression, brokenness, and hopelessness. We were never meant for these things, no wonder they are heavy.

But once again, the God of the Bible isn’t one to sit back and let humans die out for their own wrongdoings, he is one to say, “Hey, why don’t I come to them, show them how to die to the old way, live in the new, and I’ll take the consequences of it all.”

Enter Jesus. Fully God but fully man, able to empathize, walk with us, show us the way, and ultimately heal us all through his suffering love.

Something about sitting with someone in their suffering heals. It’s why in our hardest moments we don’t want advice, or the cliche, “It’s going to be okay,” we just want someone to sit with us.

Jesus is the fullness of this, a God willing to sit in it with his people to the point of becoming human, taking on the consequences of their actions, taking on a death undeserved, and coming back to life to show us that we can do the same: Die to the old, live in the new.

One day, it’ll all be new, exactly how God designed, but in this life, we get to spend our time pulling as much heaven down to earth as we can.

I don’t understand the metaphysics of this all, but somehow believing in that message really does bring us new life, and power to live it out too. Relationship with God is restored. Of course, it requires laying down everything, including our own selfishness, but it is so worth it.

These simple truths have changed everything for me. I’m already loved. I’m already enough. I don’t have to worry because I have a God who provides. I don’t have to be hopeless because I know God has good plans for me and I don’t have to live in any fear because I trust in a good God who always turns things for good.

These are simple things, I know, but when internalized I believe they make a profound difference.

For the One,