Merritt Anderson is a friend that I admire and respect - he has spoken extensively about living in the gospel every day. But I still struggle to understand how to practically live every day in my belief of the good news of Jesus dying in my place, for my sin, and granting eternal life. I understand that because of my belief in the gospel, one day heaven, and not hell will be my home. But all of that is in the future—or is it? Maybe that is the source of my struggle. Maybe the good news of the gospel is as much for the present as the future?

I took a couple of days off this week to go turkey hunting with my dad and my son. Sitting in the woods gives me a lot of time to read my Bible and think. I struggle to realize I was moved from one Kingdom to another—from Satan to Christ, from death to life, upon believing in Christ to be my only savior. I know with my head that I was placed into Christ and sealed by the Holy Spirit for the day when my redemption will be made complete. But I forget that my redemption has already begun. I am already in Christ and I am already in Christ’s kingdom. Eternal life has already begun! So, yes, the good news is both for now and the future! Yet, while this good news is unrealized in my physical body, I must take it by faith. Perhaps that is why over and over the Apostles kept reminding us that the “justified ones must continue to live by faith” (Rom.1:17; Gal. 2:20; Col.2:6; Heb. 11:6). I reread The Revelation To John to remind me of my future hope—although it may have distracted me from a successful hunt, it encouraged me to live by faith in the gospel until then!