Lord, TEACH ME YOUR GOSPEL!!

The Holy Spirit has recently been showing me that I don’t understand the gospel.  I have lived the majority of my Christian life under the influence of a religious spirit (legalism).  The gospel that I have been preaching and living is a partial gospel, it’s partial good news.  Either God has recently been revealing this to a majority of His global bride, or He is bringing me into contact with people with this exact revelation.  I ran into a preacher who recently deleted over 60 of his messages on His podcast.  It’s not that everything He has preached was wrong, it’s just that he had come to realize that His emphasis was off.

Old emphasis: After we get saved we must work hard and strive to become sanctified so we can experience God.

New emphasis: What God has begun within us by grace, He will complete within us by grace so that we may experience the free gift of union with Him.

MAJOR DIFFERENCE. 

There is absolutely nothing that we can do to earn salvation.  It is by grace alone through faith that we are saved.  I get that.

So now what? Do we have to do anything to become intimate with Christ? Do we have to do anything in our sanctification? Is it by our effort that we become more Christ like? To become spiritually mature? To break free from the power of sin?

“Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now BEING PERFECTED BY THE FLESH?” Galatians 3:3

Guilty.  The majority of my Christian life, I have had a works mindset.  I have believed that now that I am a Christian, I have to do something for my spiritual maturity.  I have to read my bible, I have to pray, I have to be in fellowship, I have to renew my mind.  I have come back under the law.

Just like you don’t have to do anything to earn your salvation, you don’t have to do anything for your sanctification (becoming more like Christ).  It is by grace through faith.  You simply need to believe.  

Believe that our righteousness comes from Christ.

It is so easy to believe that we are free from the law but still need our "christian principles" or "christian rules" that are man-made and they set a standard.  The reason we want a standard is so we can measure ourselves and see if we're okay.  That's called righteousness.  We don't get it through measuring ourselves through standards or performing.  It has to come through Christ alone.  

The Holy Spirit is way more committed to your spiritual growth than you are.  Trust that He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it.  “Fix your eyes on Jesus, the author and PERFECTOR of your faith.”

“This is the work of God, that you BELIEVE in him whom he has sent.” John 6:29

So this probably raises a lot of questions.  I challenge you to go to the Word.  Go to the letters of Paul, especially Galatians and Romans 5-8.  Read them for yourself, not with everything you’ve heard in mind, just read it.  Ask the Holy Spirit to teach you.     

I will be posting more on this topic the next several days. 

“For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” Galatians 5:1