Today’s 333 Devotional: “The Old Testament Gospel”

The Gospel Message, Old Testament style, is simple: Turn and Live.

“‘Repent, and turn from all your transgressions, so that iniquity will not be your ruin. Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. For why should you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies,’ says the Lord God. ‘Therefore turn and live!’” (Ezekiel 18:30b-32)

God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 18:23). Humanity is constantly in the throes of sin. There’s not a person alive who is righteous (Psalm 143:2); rather everyone sins and falls short of God’s holy and righteous standards for life (Romans 3:23).

Because God made a way through the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus, to those who believe, God’s mercy and grace are on full display. But many have taken the God’s grace and used it as a license to sin.

“What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?” (Romans 6:1-2)

As a note of caution, we’re not to use our freedom to continue in sin. Consider and contemplate these words, “For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them.” (2 Peter 2:21)

The Lord’s says, “But when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and does according to all the abominations that the wicked man does, shall he live? All the righteousness which he has done shall not be remembered; because of the unfaithfulness of which he is guilty and the sin which he has committed, because of them he shall die” (Ezekiel 18:24).

The Gospel is to turn and live, turn from our sin by faith in Jesus’s sacrifice and live.