The Power of God for Salvation

eDevotion

Encouragement for your daily walk with God

Divine Poem I by John Donne [1572 – 1631, English poet, satirist, lawyer and a cleric in the Church of England]:

Father of Heaven, and him, by whom
It, and us for it, and all else, for us
Thou madest, and govern’st ever, come
And re-create mee, now growne ruinous:
My heart is by dejection, clay,
And by selfe-murder, red.
From this red earth, Of Father, purge away
All vicious tinctures, that new fashioned
I may rise up from death, before I’m dead.

It’s the last line that commands my attention because it describes the regenerative power of the Gospel — to really live before death. Unfortunately, some have reduced the gospel to a mere set of rules and regulations, an ethical system, or some scheme to prosperity. But Christ followers know it is much more than that. 

According to Paul, the Gospel is the power of God for salvation, which is not merely a belief of what happens when we die, but rather, a life transforming process now. [Romans 1:16]

I so desperately need that transformation. I need it to hear the voice of God above the commotion around me. I need it to be other than I now am. I need it so that “I may rise up from death, before I’m dead” as John Donne so eloquently put it. 

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes... [Romans 1:16 NASB]