The Centrality of the Gospel

I have to agree wholeheartedly with Timothy Keller here. I suspect that we might disagree as to the contents of the Gospel from some of his phrases but ultimately this statement is wholly true:

The main problem, then, in the Christian life is that we have not thought out the deep implications of the gospel, we have not “used” the gospel in and on all parts of our life.

I think this is absolutely dead on. Some of us don't even have a firm declaration of what the Gospel is! If someone asked, we couldn't tell them exactly. This is most definitely a problem - because our Lord did, and what kind of disciples are we if we don't learn from him? Bad ones.

This Gospel of Repentance in light of the coming Kingdom has to permeate every aspect of our life. It has to bring out the darkness by shining light on it. It has to cause us to fear the coming day of the LORD, and change. We have to realize how Jesus' commands for us to live is going to alter our life. Then we have to grab ahold of those reigns for dear life - because it is going to be a crazy ride! We have to be willing to die for that Gospel. We have to be willing to give our dreams and lives to our God who sent his Son to make this proclaimation - just to obey his words. By being baptized - a declaration of your intent to follow Jesus as your Master - you have put yourself into the role of a servant. A bad servant does not obey. A bad servant is punished. If you are a good servant, do what is asked - and do not glory in doing what you are told - that is merely your duty. It is humility to say "When you have done everything say:' We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty. '" - Luke 17:10 But that has to be our attitude. We have to take on the yoke of the lord Jesus as his servants. There are so many parables where Jesus talks about servants.

Not recognizing God's powerful logos/word/Gospel is causing us to fail and fall short. In some cases we are unwilling to let God work through that Gospel. We have to rid ourselves of these walls and let God's light in. We have to let that light shine in our heart first, otherwise it will never shine through our skin.