We are at the end of a journey.

I’m not sure I can adequately communicate how transformative this reading plan has been, but I’ll give it a try.

I stated in my introductory post for this series that my goal for this reading plan was “to continue developing my understanding of God, a heart for people, and a rhythm of ministry.” When I resumed my writing project that accompanied the reading plan, my intention was “to communicate the beauty and complexity of the gospel. I want to share what God’s shared with me so that you see, feel, understand, and experience the gospel in a deeper way.”

I can honestly say that the gospel has changed me. The process of spending a year reading through the four Gospels, making observations, reflecting on the text, and articulating those reflections into writing has done so much for my heart and mind.

When it comes to my original, three-fold goal of increasing my understanding of God, developing a heart for people, and learning a rhythm of ministry, here are a few things I learned.

Understanding God

God is more than big, great, and powerful. He is intentional. Everything God does has intentionality behind it. He doesn’t mindlessly drift along and let the dust settle.

Jesus came to fulfill a purpose, a purpose that advanced God’s plan of redemptive history. He wasn’t just a nice guy, doing nice things for poor people. God foretold what His Servant would do and be like through the prophets, writings, and law of the Old Testament, and Jesus’ actions and demeanor fulfilled those descriptions.

Furthermore, Jesus Himself had a measure of self-awareness of His messianic vocation — that is, He understood His life and mission needed to align with the design and purpose as defined by the Father. We see this in John 8:12-59.

All of this roots back to who God is as a good creator. God created because He wanted to do so, and His self assessment of His creation is “good” and “very good” (see Genesis 1). The very reason the offer of the gospel exists is because God loves His good creation — all of it. He has not abandoned it in light of the Fall (Genesis 3). On the contrary, the offer of the gospel pours out of His love for His creation (John 3:16).

Developing A Heart For People

I didn’t love people when I began this reading plan. In fact, I didn’t know how to love people. I didn’t have a feeling associated with “loving people”.

But that began to change.

My exposure to the heart of Christ and the Father throughout the Gospels started to affect my heart. I started to soften as I learned more about who God is and how He feels towards His creation. I realized the significance of being made in the image of God, and that this reality forms the foundation for why I need to love people (see also James 3:1-12). Christ fulfilled His vocation because He already loved people before He began His ministry. His love for people was there from the beginning because He Himself participated in creation (John 1:1-5), and that love is the source from which the gospel flows.

A Year Through the Gospels was special for me because it further developed both my heart and mind. Both our hearts and minds need to mature and mould together as we mature in Christ, and our growth is skewed if we develop one at the expense of the other. My deeper understanding of God changed my heart for people. My emotional bandwidth increased, and with it so too did my ability to sustain an outpouring of love and care for others.

A Rhythm of Ministry

One of the most influential observations I made came from week 5, The Toll of Ministry. The story of how “in demand” Jesus was and the amount He and His disciples had to pour out to others struck me. It made me realize how serious and urgent the gospel really is. But I also realized this passage doesn’t push us towards “hustle” or “frantic” ministry. Instead, it allows us to see that the people’s needs through ministry are met through an increased capacity for us to care for them. A frantic mindset in ministry arises when we confine ourselves to a finite amount of “outpour-capacity.” We feel we need to be efficient in how we minister to people so we can maximize our effect.

But this isn’t the Christ’s way.

The effect of Christ’s ministry matched His “outpour-capacity” — which is infinite. Even so, He still retreated into seclusion so He could recover with the Father after intense ministry (example: praying on the mountain after feeding the 5,000 in Mark 6:46). If we are going to adopt a Christ-like rhythm of ministry, then we too need to be content with matching our “ministry-outpour” with our “outpour-capacity”. We minister to others with the same heart as Christ, knowing that we have less capacity than Christ, but God can both increase our capacity and yield infinite results through our obedience and faithfulness (see Mark 6:7-13; Luke 9:1-6).

This mindset has helped me remove the pressure from myself to be perfect in ministry, which has resulted in a less frantic disposition while ministering. In fact, I even feel a lightness and a sense that my work in ministry comes from resting in the process of letting God’s infinite capacity flow out of my growing capacity.

Some Final Words

I hope by now you are able to sense how special this reading plan is to me. It has deepened and broadened my understanding of the gospel both intellectually and emotionally. This series gave me an immersed experience of Jesus and His mission. Throughout my readings, I often felt like I could feel the story of Jesus. Those are cherished moments. Even more precious is how I’ve learned to bring those feelings of experiencing Jesus’ ministry with me every time I turn to a passage in the Gospels.

To close, then, this plan has helped me better understand God and His gospel. I made MANY observations while reading; some of them were theological; some were pastoral; some stimulated my mind towards God; some stirred my heart towards Him and my neighbor. This process has created and fortified a desire within me to live a gospel-centered life.

And that, perhaps, is the most fitting end to spending A Year Through The Gospels.