The Gospel is Beautiful

My kids both prayed “salvation prayers” at early ages. They’ve both heard the Gospel, but it can be easy to forget the beauty of the story. This morning we were having our family devotion and my 9 year old son, Judah, said he wanted to ask the family something. Here was his question. “Are we doing enough to get into heaven? When Jesus comes to decide who gets in, will we have done enough?” It created the perfect opportunity for us to revisit the Gospel.

We turned over to Ephesians 2:8&9 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.”. We spent the next few minutes talking about the beauty of the Gospel story. That Jesus died for us; paid the price for us; so that through His sacrifice we could have eternal life. That our hope doesn’t rest in our ability to keep a prescribed set of rules. That obedience doesn’t come from a place of fear of retribution but out of a place of gratefulness for salvation.

Judah responded by saying (tearfully) “you mean God gave His only Son for us just to give us this gift of eternal life?!”. I haven’t heard John 3:16 said with any more heart and thankfulness than my 9 year old described it.

The Gospel is beautiful. Can I get an amen?