According to the CDC, flu vaccines cause antibodies to develop about 14 days after the vaccination.
These antibodies outnumber and are stronger than the flu virus so it is destroyed before it gets a foothold in your system.
If the gospel can cure what ails us, what gives it the strength to do so? Short answer: God’s love.
Consider one of the best known verses in Scripture: John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
This verse is the essence of the gospel and helps us understand its potency. The intensity of God’s love, he SO loved the world, is the potency of his love. His love is the antibody that overwhelms our wandering desires. It destroys our sin.
How does that happen?
The result of God loving you was that he gave his only Son to be sacrificed on the cross for something that his Son did not do and absorb the punishment meant for you. The purpose of God loving you was that if you believe in Jesus would have eternal life.
Just how wide, how deep, how high is his love for us? Enough to send his only son the cross. Why? So that we have eternal life. Let us be reminded as he conquered death to give us eternal life, he also conquered sin so that we might as well. This is the potency of the gospel. It’s rooted in his love.
How awesome is that?
One of the most popular hymns of the 20th Century phrased the gospel’s potency this way,
“I was sinking deep in sin,
Far from the peaceful shore,
Very deeply stained within,
Sinking to rise no more;
But the Master of the sea
Heard my despairing cry,
From the waters lifted me,
Now safe am I.
Love lifted me!
Love lifted me!
When nothing else could help,
Love lifted me.
Love lifted me!
Love lifted me!
When nothing else could help,
Love lifted me”*
*From “Loved Lifted Me” by James Rowe in 1912.
