Remember the Fundamentals

In virtually any discipline, you need to know a set of fundamentals. If you want to play basketball, you must learn about rebounding, dribbling, and shooting. If you are starting to learn math, you don’t jump to trigonometry. You start with numbers and adding. To a seasoned athlete or student, this may sound easy and childish. But without the fundamentals, we cannot learn the more complex things.

You may be a believer of a few days or a few decades. In either case, remembering what the Gospel is and what it means to us is essential, even if Jesus has already transformed our lives. We need to remember that God created us (Genesis 1-2). We need to remember that we sinned and broke our relationship with God (Genesis 3 and Romans 3:10). We need to remember that Jesus, God’s only Son, died for our sins and offers us a chance to mend that relationship and have eternal life (John 3:16).

A coach can draw up the most incredible play guaranteed to work, but if the football players can’t catch or the basketball players can’t dribble, it will go nowhere. We can serve and do awesome things for others in this world, but we need to remember the Good News of Jesus. We must not forget that His sacrifice has paid our sin debt and bought our freedom from the punishment of that sin.