"Let Me Remind You"

There are some things in life of which we need to be reminded.  Jesus tells us that we have an enemy that works to steal away Truth.  The parable of the sower is an example of that.  Jesus said that the enemy would come after truth is sown and try to steal that newly planted seed in an effort to keep it from becoming rooted and grounded in our lives.  Today there are a lot of thieves all around that would like to move us from the foundation of our true Faith.  It is only the Truth that can save us and set us free.  No one can be saved and set free apart from the Truth of the Gospel.  There may be programs that might give people some relief but nothing other than the Gospel can bring total deliverance from the old and radical transformation into the new.  As hard as it might be to believe, we need to be reminded of that fact.  We need to regularly inspect what we are teaching, preaching and talking to make sure we aren't offering a Gospel that is less than truth.  

The Apostle Paul writes the church at Corinth and brings them just such a reminder and a call back to the basics.

 I Corinthians 15:1"Let me now remind you, dear brothers and

sisters, of the Good News I preached to you before. You welcomed it then, and you still stand firm in it. 2It is this Good News that saves you if you continue to believe the message I told you—unless, of course, you believed something that was never true in the first place.

3I passed on to you what was most important and what had also

 been passed on to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the 

Scriptures said. 4He was buried, and he was raised from the dead 

on the third day, just as the Scriptures said.  

Paul reminds the church of the Good News and a definition of what that good news entails at its root level.  That foundational message is that Christ died for our sins, He was buried and he was raised from the dead on the third day.  The last phrase is also important, "just as the Scripture said."  We must remain true to our immovable belief that the Scripture is true, the very bedrock of our salvation and the salvation of all who hear us declare salvation.  We must regularly and unashamedly preach in our churches that Jesus died for our sins, he was crucified and put to death and he was raised from the dead.  It is a spiritual and historical fact.  If we ever relegate this to fiction even in a passive way, our Gospel ceases to have the power to save the lost.  We must be reminded as Paul reminds us that this Gospel is the very "power of God leading to salvation."