There can be no <insert anything good here> without the gospel first being central in our lives.
Skeptical?
Let’s try it.
There can be no love, no faith, no rest, no meaning, no joy, no hope, no perseverance, no purpose in sacrifice, no reason to get to work on time or in doing one’s best — if there is no timeless good news first.
The gospel reveals God’s love in a tangible way when Jesus elects to die on the cross. Read the account carefully and understand he gave his life up freely for our sake.
Faith alone is meaningless. It requires an object. We have to have faith in something, and we discover that saving faith comes in believing the gospel.
One more from our list above and then you can finish the rest on your own.
Without the gospel, there is no rest. Why? Because Jesus died for us and we, by faith, can rest in this fact. Nothing else is required.
I know it sounds simple. It should. It is. What makes it seem difficult at times to simply trust that Jesus died so we can live, is a temptation to be more than we really are. It’s the problem of pride. In a sense we don’t want to be saved by the work of someone else, even if it’s God and even if it is impossible for us to ever succeed in saving ourselves.
Certainly there will be pushback on my statement about the significance and centrality of the gospel. This is both fair and important, because without this tension, we won’t go deeper, and we continually need to dig deeper in our understanding. The worst response to anything important is not rejection, because the energy necessary to forcefully reject something may actually in time bring this one back around to rethink things. The worst response is indifference. It’s the rolling of the eyes and the mumbled, “Whatever” that kills the enthused and excited heart.
My point is the energy to stay in the battle, to do one’s best, to love unlovable people, comes from first allowing the truth of the gospel to sink into our thick skulls and stony hearts.
And what is this truth?
That Jesus died for me.
What does this mean?
That a way of escape out of a hopeless life and death has been given to me free of charge. This is what grace is all about. It is giving me something I will never deserve and will never be able to earn.
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
Thank you for this great explanationt. It reminded me of this verse: "Every good and perfect gift is from above , coming down from the Father of heavenly lights, who does not change like the shifting shadows. James: 1:17