God created us to be with him.
Our sins separate us from God.
Sins cannot be removed by good deeds.
Paying the price for sins, Jesus died and rose again.
Everyone who trusts in him alone has eternal life.
Life that’s eternal can never be lost, er, I mean, we will be with Jesus forever…wait.
We are making a change to the GOSPEL…wait, um, I don’t mean that like it sounded. What I mean is that we are changing the GOSPEL acrostic that we use to train students to share the best news on the planet. The change is to the “L” in the GOSPEL. This is actually the third change for the L. We love the L but want to get it just right. It’s nothing personal L but, well, although the Gospel never changes, the GOSPEL acrostic does from time to time.
Originally the L stood for “Life that’s eternal can never be lost” which seems kinda redundant when you think about it.
The second and most recent version was “Life eternal means we will be with Jesus forever.” An improvement but still not quite right. This was emphasized to me awhile ago by my fellow Dare 2 Share speaker Zane Black. He told me in his Zane way, “Dude, I love the GOSPEL but I’m all about the fact that eternal life starts now, not later.”
At the time I patted him on his surfer/skater head and said something like, “Yeah, I agree with you and we can explain that to the students after we train them in the L the way that it is.” In other words, “Back off surfer boy cause the GOSPEL is already in the can, on the website, in countless pieces of curriculum and in The GOSPEL Journey Reality Series and I’m not about to change it…so wax your board and leave the acrostics to me.”
Then, not all that long ago, Jason Lamb, the leader of our sales department at Dare 2 Share, and a former youth leader himself, emphasized to me the fact that he really didn’t like the “L” in the GOSPEL. He told me he thought it was incomplete…blah, blah, blah. It was basically all of the same reasons that Zane had stated and I kinda got ticked for all the same reasons I have already stated.
But both Zane and Jason’s words got stuck in my craw and the Spirit of God used them to convict and convince me. I’ve come to the conclusion that Z and J were right and I was wrong.
Dang it.
So I reworked the L with Zane and here is what we came up with: “Life with Jesus starts now and lasts forever.”
What I like about it is that it is Biblical (John 17:3 refers to eternal life as an intimate relationship with God), immediate (Jesus said in John 6:47 that we receive eternal life as soon as we believe), relevant (teens are looking for something now, not just later) and hopeful (heck, it still does last forever and heaven is a huge part of it.)
So thanks Zane and Jason. God used your little intervention in a powerful way. I guess old dogs can learn new acronyms!
Oh, by the way, you’re both fired.
I kid. I kid.
