JOLLYBLOGGER: Michael Schiavo and the Gospel says

"My own words convict me. I'm working on my Good Friday message and here is are the opening words:

D. A. Carson is a well known Bible scholar and theologian who says this about the Apostle Paul.

�He cannot long talk about Christian joy, or Christian ethics, or Christian fellowship, or the Christian doctrine of God, or anything else, without finally tying it to the cross. Paul is gospel centered, he is cross-centered?�

How about you? How about me? Are you gospel-centered? Are you cross-centered? Forgive me for piling on the quotes but I have to quote Jerry Bridges, a well-known author who says this:

�The gospel is not only the most important message in all of history, it is only essential message in all of history. Yet we allow thousands of professing Christians to live their entire lives without clearly understanding it and experiencing the joy of living by it.�

Let me repeat something there �

�The gospel is the only essential message in all of history?�

What is the cross to you? Is it the only essential thing? Is it one important part of your life among many others? Is it the most important thing in your life? Or is it the only essential thing in your life?
Jonathan Edwards who said he had "Resolved, to act, in all respects, both speaking and doing, as if nobody had been so vile as I, and as if I had committed the same sins, or had the same infirmities or failings as others; and that I will let the knowledge of their failings promote nothing but shame in myself, and prove only an occasion of my confessing my own sins and misery to God.........

If you have read me the last couple of days you have seen that I have gotten pretty worked up about the whole Terri Schiavo situation. I think it is unconscionable what is being done to her by her husband Michael and by the courts of our land.

Yet, with all of my moral outrage on this, I have to stop and ask myself if I am viewing this situation, and Michael in particular through a gospel-centered lens, or through a cross-centered lens?

.......I fear that, for the rest of Michael's life, Christians will be praying for his comeuppance more than they will for his salvation. Christians will be mostly concerned that Michael receive justice for his part in this rather than mercy.

I also fear that Michael will receive a lifetime of hate messages from professing Christians......

I have to confess that, until now I have not looked at Michael through gospel eyes, or through a cross-centered lens. I have committed the sin of moral indignation, forgetting that I am the chief of sinners. I have also forgotten my favorite of Jonathan Edwards' resolutions:

8. Resolved, to act, in all respects, both speaking and doing, as if nobody had been so vile as I, and as if I had committed the same sins, or had the same infirmities or failings as others; and that I will let the knowledge of their failings promote nothing but shame in myself, and prove only an occasion of my confessing my own sins and misery to God. July 30.

None of us should dare think that Michael has sunk to a level of "vileness" to which we ourselves have not sunk.

Viewing Michael through the lens of the gospel will cause us to acknowledge that he is a sinner, but will cause us to desire that he receive the same mercy from God that we who call ourselves Christians have received."