The Gospel

The gospel in its simplest definition is God delivering us from sin. “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Corinthians 5:21). This verse describes two movements of God: God taking away our sin and God giving us righteousness. Our sin needs to go somewhere and our newfound righteousness needs to come from somewhere. The gospel can be summarized into four words: sin, righteousness, you, Jesus.

God has delivered you from slavery. 

“whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.” (John 8:34). Our deliverance from sin is more than an accounting process of recording a transaction on a ledger. It is the process of God conforming us into His righteousness and restoring His image that He originally created into our humanity. Jesus didn’t just come to pay for the penalty of our sins, He also came to restore to us the dignity we have lost.

What freedom do you need to walk in?

We need to remember that we have been set free from the chains of sin in our past. The work of Jesus on the cross enables us to walk with our head held high. We do not need to walk with our heads down being ashamed of our freedom. Whatever we were enslaved to in the past, we have been delivered, and we can walk in freedom.

Find the direction of your freedom.

We know where we have come from, and we know where we should be going. We have to connect those two points and determine how to get from where we are along the line to the point we are going to. We all have a unique past, background and skills set. God calls us to use the past that has been given to us to bring His Kingdom to life in our present situation. God has a specific direction for each of us to move in and He has set us free to move forward in that direction.

Make a plan to move forward in that direction.

As with any journey, we won’t progress along our spiritual journey without a plan. A good plan begins with knowing where we came from and where we are going and then outlines steps on how we plan to get there. Our spiritual plan must also factor in where other people are at in their spiritual journey and how they can impact our journey. We get to determine how we will use other people’s spiritual gifts to develop ourselves and how we will use our spiritual gifts to help others. We also need to examine what the Holy Spirit is doing in our lives through the Word of God and the spiritual disciplines.