Stumbling Over The Gospel

Stumbling Over The Gospel

Our young people have been misled and our whole world suffers as a result. Self-harm, substance abuse, destructive addictions of all varieties, and a worldview that embraces a disposable view of life are devastating the our land. The Gospel provides the answer for all of these problems but while some gladly accept the truth and embrace it, others turn their back to the only true hope they will ever have.

The harmful errors that the world propagates are many but I’d like to rebut these five.

1 - While the world teaches our children to put their own happiness first, the Bible teaches otherwise. Selfish love is empty and meaningless. That’s actually what vanity means. Over time, each of us learns that we only find true joy when we put others before ourselves. God blesses us when we do that. You can’t be fulfilled without the blessing of God.

Philippians 2:3-4

“Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.”

2 - “Loving yourself” is just another term for pride. There is a saying that I hear more and more that goes like this: ”You can’t love others until you learn to love yourself.”

May I point out the biblical flaw in this? The Gospel teaches us to love God with everything we have. That’s everything. You can’t do that without putting Him first. Then, we are told to love our neighbors as much as we love ourselves. The world has it exactly backwards. We learn to love others after we discover the incredibly great love God has for us even though we deserve none of it. Loving God teaches us to love others. All of that requires us to take a back seat. That’s how love works.

1 John 4:10-11

“In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us ... if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”

The Bible also tells us that we are flawed and in need of a Savior. Tomorrow: debunking the last three errors that are destroying our children.