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What are the essential Gospel truths you must share with others?

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Did you know that the Gospel contains pretty much every truth taught in the Bible? It’s true. Since the Gospel is about Jesus, and since Jesus is the focus of the Bible and all Scripture points to Him, then this means that the entire Bible is “Gospel truth.”

But here’s the problem with that fact:

If the entire Bible is Gospel truth, then what are you supposed to share with others when you present the gospel to them?

Can you really tell them to just “read the Bible”? Can you tell them that they have not believed in the Gospel until they believe the entire Bible?

gospel truthIf so, we might as well just give up evangelizing right now. You will rarely, if ever, get a non-believer to read the entire Bible, and even then, no one ever actually believes the entire Bible (not even you).

Stop Telling People to “Believe the Gospel”

This is why I never invite people to “believe the gospel to become a Christian.” Such a statement is just too vague and too vast.

Saying, “Believe the Gospel” is akin to saying, “Believe the Bible to become a Christian.”

Besides, when someone starts reading the Bible, they quickly come across statements that are hard to believe, such as the idea that Methulselah lived to be 969 years old (Gen 5:27), that Joshua got the sun to stand still for a day (Joshua 10:13), or that Elisha got an ax head to float (2 Kings 6:6).

If they think they have to believe the entire Bible to become a Christian and they read those hard to believe ideas and think, “Well, I just cannot believe that!” they will then think, “I guess I cannot be a Christian.”

But they can become a Christian, even if they don’t (yet) believe these things! The problem is not with their lack of faith, but with our failure to clearly present the gospel.

We need to present the gospel like Jesus

People don’t need to believe the entire Bible, or the entire Gospel, in order to become a Christian. They just need to believe in Jesus.

Though the entire Bible is gospel truth, there are some gospel truths which consistently appear whenever someone is inviting others to become a Christian.

Jesus is the best guide and example of this. In the Gospel of John (which is the only book of the Bible written with the express purpose that those who read it will believe and have life–John 20:31), Jesus shows us over and over and over how to simply, clearly, and succinctly invite people to gain eternal life.

While the entire Bible contains Gospel truths, there are some central gospel truths which I call the gospel invitation. This gospel invitation is what Jesus consistently used (as did Peter, Paul, and the other apostles) to invite non-believers to receive eternal life from Jesus.

Here is what they said:

Believe in Jesus for eternal life.

That’s it.

Jesus used versions of this statement over and over and over in the Gospel of John (cf. John 3:16; 5:24; 6:47). In my course, The Gospel According to Scripture, I include a resource which shows where this gospel invitation is used 185 times in the New Testament. It is used consistently by Peter, Paul, and the other apostles.

believe in Jesus

Best of all, this gospel invitation is used consistently by Jesus. If this gospel invitation was good enough for Jesus, it is good enough for me.

So the next time you are talking with someone about the gospel or how to receive eternal life, don’t use unclear and muddled statements. Instead, follow the example of Jesus and Scripture, and simply invite people to believe in Jesus for eternal life. This is the best, clearest, and most biblical way of inviting people to receive eternal life.

so stop telling people to believe the gospel. This is like telling people to believe the Bible. This is not wrong, it is just not helpful. Such an invitation is too vast and too vague. Instead, let us follow the example of Jesus and use His gospel invitation.

Invite people to believe in Jesus for eternal life.

The Gospel According to ScriptureWant to learn more about the gospel? Take my new course, "The Gospel According to Scripture."

The entire course is free for those who join my online Discipleship group here on RedeemingGod.com. I can't wait to see you inside the course!

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Have you heard this misleading Gospel message?

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The basic gospel message heard in many churches and found in many books in the United States can be summarized this way:

God is good. You’re not. Try harder.

Those who teach this sort of gospel message often use different words and different ideas, but the overall idea is usually along those lines.

gospel message

A Misleading Gospel Message

Let me share a few phrases which you might have heard from pulpits, read in books, or even taught to others.

Jesus gave His life for you; you need to give your life to Him.

Salvation is by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone.

It’s not enough just to believe. After all, even the demons believe.

While salvation is by faith alone, true faith is not just a mental assent to a bunch of facts. True faith will result in a life of obedience to God.

To truly be a Christian, it’s not enough to just believe in your heart, you need to confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord.

To really be saved, you need to repent of your sin and submit your life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

Unless you commit your life to Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ will not commit His life to you.

And on, and on, and on it goes.

These are the sorts of ideas and gospel messages that you often hear in many popular versions of Christianity.

Are Good Works Required for Eternal Life?

If you look over each of those statements, you see that all of them have something in common. Each one mentions or implies that there is more to receiving eternal life than just faith. Each one teaches that faith alone in Jesus Christ alone is not enough, but some form of good works or additional commitment to God is needed above and beyond simple faith alone in Jesus.

Isn’t it strange that while most Christians talk about how eternal life is by faith alone, when it actually comes down to what they believe and how they present the gospel, they somehow incorporate good works into the mix?

Most gospel messages today include works and commitment as part of the requirement for becoming a Christian, staying a Christian, or proving that you really are a Christian.

In my course on the Gospel, I present the exact opposite idea. I present the idea that good works are not required to earn, keep, or prove a person’s eternal life.

Let me state it more clearly: I believe that not even a commitment to obedience and faithful living is required.

Eternal life is by God’s grace from first to last, and God does not require a person to earn eternal life, keep eternal life, or prove that they have eternal life by obedience, commitment, or dedication.

If you look at all those statements in that list above (and the myriad of others that I did not list), they all require some sort of obedience, commitment, or faithful living in order to earn, keep, or prove your eternal life. I believe the Bible teaches the opposite. I believe the Bible teaches that while there is a place for good works in the life of the believer, good works have no place in earning, keeping, or proving our eternal life.

What do you think of this idea? What do you think of the misleading gospel messages above that are often found in books and sermons about the Gospel? What role, if any, do you think good works play in gaining, keeping, or proving your eternal life? Share your ideas in the comment section below!

The Gospel According to ScriptureWant to learn more about the gospel? Take my new course, "The Gospel According to Scripture."

The entire course is free for those who join my online Discipleship group here on RedeemingGod.com. I can't wait to see you inside the course!

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What is the Definition of the Gospel?

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Have you ever thought about the definition of the gospel?

I find it surprising that while all of us Christians like to talk about the gospel, few of us actually agree on how to define the gospel.

This is one reason I made my course, The Gospel According to Scripture, available here on this site.

I wanted to help people know what the Scriptural definition of the Gospel was so that they could properly know that they have eternal life, and also how the gospel calls them to live in this life.

I basically define the gospel this way:

The good news in Scripture is that God has done everything that needs doing as far as your eternal life is concerned.

definition of the gospelThis, of course, doesn’t mean that once you have eternal life, you can just go live however you want. The gospel contains all sorts of truths and teachings about how to live our lives now once we have the free gift of eternal life.

I unpack my definition of the gospel in my course, but I am curious about your definition of the gospel.

Please let me know in the comment section below, or, better yet, take the first couple lessons of the course for free (by becoming a member), and in those lessons you are invited to provide your definition of the gospel there.

Here are some other posts I have written about the biblical definition of the Gospel:

The Gospel According to ScriptureWant to learn more about the gospel? Take my new course, "The Gospel According to Scripture."

The entire course is free for those who join my online Discipleship group here on RedeemingGod.com. I can't wait to see you inside the course!

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My Sin

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I remember as a child asking God to forgive me and accept me into His family, but afterward, every time I sinned, I would worry that maybe God had kicked me out of His family or that He didn’t love me anymore.

child praying for forgivenessI made it an almost daily habit to ask God back into my heart. I never really knew for sure where I stood with God, and so prayed daily to thank Him for loving me if He still did, but if He did not, then would He please forgive me and start loving me again.

I didn’t really have too many major sins to be worried about. It was just the normal kid stuff, such as talking back to my parents, getting mad at one of my sisters, or stealing a piece of penny candy from the glass bowl on the pastor’s desk at church.

Asking the Devil into My Heart

One time, though, I heard that a true Christian could never be possessed by the devil, so I decided to test whether or not I was a true Christian by praying to the devil and inviting him into my heart.

I remember feeling relieved afterward that I could still name the name of Jesus and pray to God, but for many years after that, I wondered if I had in fact been possessed by the devil and he was just deceiving me into thinking I had not.

So I prayed and begged for God’s forgiveness and that He would keep me in His family.

Getting Addicted to Porn

In Junior High and High School, I fell into a sin which I could never seem to beat. This was a sin which most males struggle with most of their lives, but which few Christians talk about. It was pornography. This cycle of sin led me into a cycle of shame, guilt, and fear, which then led to tearful confessions, repentance, and promises to never do it again, only to fall right back into it a few days or weeks later.

sin guilt and shameSimilar sorts of sins, problems, and fears followed me into college, adulthood, marriage, and even into my first years as a pastor.

Finding Freedom in God’s Love and Grace

It was during college that I first began to see some of the central truths of the gospel, and it was because of these truths that I first began to find the freedom, liberty, and joy in my relationship with God that I had often heard about but had rarely experienced.

These gospel truths liberated me from the fear of God’s rejection and the shame of my sin.

Later, during my years as a pastor, I came to understand the limitless freedom of God’s grace, and how to invite people into a relationship with God centered on grace instead of on our own performance.

In more recent years, these truths have continued to blossom, flourish, and grow into a certainty about the centrality of God’s unconditional love for everything in the life of the Christian. The fact that God’s love is unconditional means that there is nothing we need to do (or stop doing) to earn it, keep it, or prove it.

In my course, The Gospel According to Scripture, I share some of the truths with you that I have learned over the past couple decades which have helped and encouraged me.

freedom from sin and guiltI share with you what I have learned about God’s infinite love, grace, and forgiveness. I want you to begin to experience these truths in your own life, so that you not only come to a fuller understanding of the gospel, but so that you can actually begin to experience the promises and freedoms of the gospel in a real and tangible way.

If you take the course, you will see that God is pure love, that God’s love for you is unconditional and unadulterated. Once you see this, your fear and shame will fade away, because there is no fear in love (1 John 4:18). You will come to recognize that since God loves you completely and unconditionally, there is nothing you need to do to earn or keep God’s love for you.

The Gospel According to ScriptureWant to learn more about the gospel? Take my new course, "The Gospel According to Scripture."

The entire course is free for those who join my online Discipleship group here on RedeemingGod.com. I can't wait to see you inside the course!

grace gives freedom

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The 1 Big Problem with the Gospel

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The primary problem with most of what is proclaimed in churches today as the gospel is that it really isn’t much of a gospel.

The word “gospel” means good news, but most presentations of the gospel do not contain a whole lot of good news.

At least, not in the long run.

Most gospel presentations are mostly bad news.

Why?

Because they are missing the word “nothing.”

The word “nothing” is the missing word of the Gospel. To see this, let us quickly define the gospel the way it is often defined today.

What is the Gospel?

If I were to ask you, “What is the gospel?” you would likely respond with something that you read in a book or heard your pastor teach.

The gospel, according to many people, is the message that Jesus Christ died on the cross and rose from the dead to pay the penalty for our sins and all we have to do to receive eternal life is believe in Jesus for it.

gospel problemThe gospel, for most people, centers around a few key words: God, sin, death, Jesus, cross, believe, eternal life.

Adding to the Gospel

While none of this is wrong, it just isn’t … complete.

Most people sense this, which is why, after a person believes in Jesus for eternal life, other well-meaning Christians come alongside that new believer and try to fill in the pieces.

After a person believes in Jesus for eternal life, the nagging question in their heart and mind is, “Now what?” People know there must be something more to this whole Jesus thing, but they are not sure what it is.

The tragic reality is that there are plenty of people and churches who are more than willing to fill in the pieces, but the pieces they provide do not come from the gospel of grace but from the rules of religion.

preaching the gospelThe missing pieces that often get added on to the gospel are not from God’s gospel at all, but are from the legalistic laws of man-made religion.

Where the “nothing” piece is supposed to go, religion adds all sorts of rules and regulations.

New believers are told to attend church, read the Bible and pray every day, get rid of sinful music and sinful activities and sinful speech, tithe faithfully, attend a Bible study, build friends with Christians, and so on. Along with this list of things new Christians must do, there is also a list of things to believe. New Christians must believe the Bible and everything written in it, and must not doubt a word of it. They must believe that God is always at work, even if everything goes bad. They must believe what the pastor says, and what the church tells them.

And on and on it goes.

Yet here is where the problem begins.

Most people have trouble with these lists of these behaviors and beliefs.

It is not that they don’t want to do or believe these things; the problem is they cannot.

The list of activities and behaviors that Christians are to be involved in is overwhelming. Most people cannot add daily prayer and Bible reading into an already busy life, let alone church services on Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night, a Bible study on Friday night, and an accountability group on Saturday morning.

As for sin, while most people can fix a few sins, they can’t fix all of them, and every time one sin gets “fixed,” a dozen more seem to sprout up.

Then there are all the strange things written in the Bible. Most people have trouble believing everything that is there. Was the universe really created in only six days about 6000 years ago? Did people live to be almost 1000? Did an axe head really float? And on and on it goes.

Eventually, what began as the good news of God’s love and grace becomes the bad news of duty, obligation, shame, fear, guilt, and failure.

gospel guilt

The pieces of the puzzle which have been added to the gospel sound right and even biblical, but they rapidly cause the gospel to lose its luster and appeal.

The Solution to the Gospel Problem

The solution to this gospel problem is to recognize once and for all that there is nothing we need to do to earn, keep, or prove God’s free gift of eternal life. This is the beginning of the gospel, and if we get this wrong, the rest of the gospel unravels as well.

So what do you need to do?

Nothing!

No amount of good works before, during, or after the reception of eternal life can help you earn, prove, or keep your eternal life. This is square one of the gospel, and everything follows from here.

The Gospel According to ScriptureWant to learn more about the gospel? Take my new course, "The Gospel According to Scripture."

The entire course is free for those who join my online Discipleship group here on RedeemingGod.com. I can't wait to see you inside the course!

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