7 Ways Weary Women Can Remember the Gospelfeatured
I’ve been reflecting on Elyse Fitzpatrick’s book, Good News for Weary Women. She points out our tendencies to try to justify ourselves and to try to identify ourselves by our rule-keeping, and she calls women, again and again, to remember the Gospel.
But sometimes just telling each other to “remember the Gospel” isn’t totally helpful. How do we keep it from becoming just another thing on our list? How do we remember the Gospel day-in and day-out? At the end of her book, EF offers a list of suggestions. I highly recommend her book and will let you read her list and glean from her counsel.
I want to share my own list of ways to remember the Gospel throughout the day. I have not arrived in this area. And none of these are the secret to success. We will all forget the Gospel. But, by the grace of God and the power of the Spirit, as the good news of Christ dwells in us richly, we will return to the glorious, good news again and again to find rest for our weary souls.
1. Go to church.
God has graciously given us means through which he has promised to strengthen our faith. One of those is sitting under the Word preached. Attending a church that faithfully preaches the Gospel week after week is a gift of grace, and we ought to show up week after week ready to be reminded of our need and to receive the good news of the Gospel.
Another means God has promised to use is communion. As we come before the table, we bring nothing. It is a tangible picture of the way we receive by faith what has been given to us: Christ’s broken body and blood poured out for us. And just as surely as we taste the bread and the wine, we can be sure of his work accomplished for us on the cross. It is finished! As we partake of the Lord’s Supper together we are reminded that the Lord is faithful even when we are not (2 Timothy 2:13).
2. Read and study your Bible.
So often Bible-reading gets added to the list of things to check off in order to feel like we’ve accomplished something. So then it also becomes a reason we walk around with heads hung low, feeling like failures because we didn’t make time to read that day. While there is Spirit-empowered discipline involved here, sometimes I wonder if we don’t enjoy our time in Scripture because we are reading isolated stories and commands and are missing the big picture.
The whole story of the Bible finds its fulfillment in Christ. Studying the Bible allows us to see the faithfulness of God as He accomplishes His redemptive purposes in and through the lives of messed up people like us. This is how we must come to the Bible—not looking for a list of rules to follow or an inspirational quote that will get us through the day, but rather looking for Jesus and expectant that God will use His Word to nourish our souls and strengthen our faith.
3. Memorize and meditate on Gospel passages.
While the whole Bible points us to Christ, some passages give us a wonderful, succinct summary of the Gospel. Memorizing one or some of these passages gives us words to use when we don’t know how to remind ourselves of the Gospel. Ephesians 2:1-10 and Titus 3:3-7 are two of my favorites. There are many more: Romans 5:1-11, Romans 8, Colossians 2:13-15, Galatians 4:3-7, and Titus 2:11-14. If memorizing a whole passage is daunting, start with a verse that reminds you of the truth of the Gospel: 2 Corinthians 5:21,Romans 5:8, Romans 8:1, 2 Corinthians 8:9, Galatians 5:1, or others.
A beautiful side effect of memorization is meditation. As we memorize Scripture, especially as we take the time to memorize whole passages of Scripture, we dwell on the words and let the Spirit use them to renew our minds and change our hearts. Taking the time to meditate on the Gospel is an exercise we will not regret.
4. Learn the indicatives.
Many of us are good at finding the verses that apply to how we want to grow. I want to be more loving, so I write Colossians 3:14 on a notecard and hang it on my mirror: “Above all these put on love.” The problem is, as I stare at the law every day, it convicts me of my inability to love, but the command itself cannot produce in me the desire to obey it. Looking at the passage leading up to that verse, Colossians 3:12-14, it begins, “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved…” (emphasis mine). When you know the context, you can read the isolated verse but know that it’s rooted in God’s love for us. He chose me in Christ and calls me holy and beloved, therefore I can love others because I’ve been loved.
This is why memorizing whole passages of Scripture is such a beneficial exercise. Even if you are not inclined to memorize that much at a time, knowing the context for yourself is a great start. Find the indicative (what Christ has done) that gives fuel to the imperative (what we should do).
5. Cultivate friendships anchored in the Gospel.
It is one thing to have Christian friendships, but it requires a different level of intentionality to root those relationships in the Gospel. Our natural tendency is to give advice to each other, not necessarily to ask questions that expose our unbelief or idolatry and point us to the truth of the Gospel. We need to foster friendships and community where the natural response to struggle is to aim at the heart and respond with reminders of Christ’s work on our behalf, not just helpful tips to try.
I have been blessed by friends and family who have faithfully done this for me. I often text my husband in despair after blowing it with my kids. His response? Usually something along the lines of, “God is not disappointed with you. He loves you. Run to Jesus.” He could tell me to take a nap, respond to my kids differently, or any number of practical and potentially helpful things. But he knows that what my heart really needs is a reminder of the truth of the Gospel.
Missional Community is a unique context that gives us the opportunity to develop these relationships. But as we consider what it looks like to develop this culture, we have to ask: Am I this kind of friend? It is one thing to desire these friendships, but change often starts with us. Let’s be the friend who will ask heart-level questions and respond with the truth of the Gospel instead of just giving advice.
6. Tell the truth.
An important caveat to the previous point is that we have to be willing to admit when we blow it. The good news is that the Gospel frees us to tell the truth about our struggles. When we live our lives before the cross, we realize that we humbly stand side-by-side with our brothers and sisters, who are fellow sinners. There is no need for pretense; we can be transparent about our failures and weaknesses. And as we expose our neediness, we give room for the Gospel to be applied. Perfect people don’t need to be reminded of the Gospel. But those people don’t exist.
7. Resist comparison.
Elyse Fitzpatrick points out that our attempts at law-keeping and our feelings of failure often stem from looking at others and trying to keep up. In a day where we broadcast our lives via social media, we have many avenues for comparing ourselves to others. Sometimes, the simple answer to how we can remember the Gospel is to take our eyes off of each other and fix them on Christ.
What that looks like for each of us will vary. I have had seasons where it is wise for me to stay off of social media and that has been beneficial, and then there are times when I’ve tried to blame social media only to realize the problem resides in my heart. There is no rule here, just an opportunity to examine our hearts and our habits as we consider what helps us to remember the Gospel.
Remember the Gospel
These things help me to remember the Gospel, and I hope they are helpful. But they are not magic. I still forget daily (and so will you). And even as we put structures in place that might serve us to this end, we need to keep them in their proper place. These are not laws; practicing them will not earn us favor with God; God already bestows upon us His favor when we are united to His Son by faith. “We are already loved, already perfected, already approved of, already justified” (160). I pray we can rest in that reality today.
