The Gospel of Jesus Christ is something that is disputed and fought over. It is that way because the hearts of men are wicked and do not want to bow in utter submission to the true Christ. It is far easier to think of salvation as Jesus doing something and then all I have to do is to pray a prayer and exercise an intellectual belief and then I am saved from hell. We think of that as good news because it delivers us from hell. But what we don’t often think of is that sin itself is the punishment for sin (Romans 1:18-32). When God judges sinners, He turns them over to hard hearts and they are given over to more and more sin. If God just saves people from a place called hell and does not deliver them from sin itself, then they would have a living hell within them. There is no hell apart from sin and one is not saved from a future hell until s/he is saved from the power of sin in the present.
In the past several blog posts I have set out some things about how we use time and then the thoughts and words that we use. We are going to give account to God for all of those things. Our thoughts will be judged and even every careless word will be brought into judgment (Matthew 12:26). Can we be said to be delivered from hell if we are not delivered from the power of sin regarding our thoughts and words? The Gospel of Jesus Christ delivers from the guilt of sin but also the power of sin. A heart that has been changed by the living God is one that longs to be delivered from its own sinful thoughts and words. It is a heart that has been changed by the grace of God. In fact, Paul told us that we are to take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ (II Corinthians 10:5). This should not be a burden in doing something we don’t want to do, but it should be a burden that we have not perfected it any better than we have. Do we have the love of God in us if we are not striving after holier and holier thoughts?
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is also the Gospel of the kingdom of God in the hearts of His people. When a sinner has been transferred from the dominion of darkness into the kingdom of the Beloved Son (Colossians 1:13), that sinner is no longer the same ole sinner but is now a completely different person. The Gospel of the omnipotent God is a Gospel of power to change hearts and to change the focus and intents of hearts. The Gospel is not just a bunch of facts that we have to be convinced of or convince ourselves of, but it has to do with the Person of Jesus Christ dwelling in the hearts of believers. The good news of the Gospel is that no longer am I completely a slave of sin and a slave of the devil, but that now Jesus Christ lives in me and He works love and holiness in my soul because He is now my life. The Gospel is about the fact that the Lord God omnipotent reigns and His kingdom is in the hearts of all true believers in and through Christ. What kind of weak Savior is Christ if He is unable to deliver His people from the power of sin now? Could He deliver His people from hell later on if not from the power of sin now?
In our day what is called the Gospel is hardly even recognizable as even close to the same Gospel in the Bible. The Gospel of the Bible is one of great power. The Gospel of the Bible is one of great glory. The one today is weak and focused on man and has little to nothing of the glory of God in it. The Gospel of the Bible is one where the glory of the beauty of God shines brightly in and through it. The so-called gospel of today shines forth with the darkness of a focus on man. But the power of the Gospel is seen in delivering the sinner from the power of sin which is the love and glory of self. When a semblance of the gospel is preached and yet it still leaves men centered on themselves, it is a weak and erroneous gospel because those people are not delivered from the power of sin.
Matthew 1:21 sets out this thought in terms of the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ. “She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” The Lord Jesus Christ is indeed the Lord who will deliver His people from the bondage of sin. After all, John 8:34 tells us very clearly that sin is a form of slavery: “Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.”” Other verses also set this out as a clear truth from Scripture: “For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bondage of iniquity” (Acts 8:23). “Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin” (Romans 6:6). “For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness” (Rom 6:20). “For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin” (Rom 7:14). “For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another” (Titus 3:3). If the Lord Jesus Christ who is King of Kings came to deliver His people from the dominion of darkness, Satan, and sin (Col 1:13), then a person only has Christ if that person is broken from the bondage of sin. This does not mean that a person will be perfect, but simply that the Gospel of Jesus Christ does deliver a person from bondage by the power of the Gospel or the power of God in Christ.
God Loves... Himself 
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