THE TRUE GOSPEL -- Please don't water it down!
Even if you think you know what the Gospel is, may I encourage you to read all the way through this post.  Lay aside the marbles you have been taught (see post below about marbles), and look with an open mind and an open heart to what the Scripture says the Gospel is.

Point #1 -- God is good. We are not. We need a Savior. If we have broken one of the commandments, according to Scripture, we have broken them all. We are dead, just like the dry bones talked about in Ezekiel 37. We have no life in us. We cannot bring life to ourselves no matter how hard we try. Religion won’t even do it. You can go to church every Sunday of your life and still go to hell if your heart is never regenerated. (Deut. 32:3-4, Ps. 18:30-31, Rom. 3:23, James 2:10)
 Point #2 -- God is just. He cannot overlook sin. Someone has to pay the price for your sin. We deserve the same death Christ received and separation from Him for all eternity. Out of the abundance of His love, He sent JESUS, but that doesn’t automatically mean because Jesus died everyone gets into heaven. It doesn’t even mean “good” people get into heaven. Because, remember the bones??? Because of our sin, we are dead. That’s the bad news. (Zec. 9:9, Rev. 15:3)


The good news is this! Jesus died in our place and offers us salvation. We don’t receive it, however, by going to church. We don’t receive it by praying a prayer, necessarily. Many lost people have prayed a prayer at one time in their lives, and yet show no evidence of salvation in their lives. We don’t receive it by being a good person, because on the scale of comparison, I cannot compare myself to people (like I so often do), I am compared to Jesus Christ. Unless we can live a life as perfect and sinless as He did, we will not enter the kingdom of heaven. (John 3:16, 1 Cor. 6:9)

The good news is... because of what Jesus did for us, we can receive HIS righteousness.  So that, when God looks at us, He sees His Son.  What a beautiful, perfect, amazing gift.


Most pastors and teachers at this point, when someone says they want to receive this gift of salvation, will lead people through a few simple steps, have them say a "prayer of repentance", and pronounce them saved. This is NOT what Scripture teaches. We need to hold all things up to Scripture, and I have looked. Nowhere in the Bible does it talk about this prayer. What I say to you tonight, I encourage you to search it out for yourselves in Scripture. Ultimately it is not what I say, what your pastor or church says, or what your parents have taught you that matters. It is what Scripture says – the very words of God – that matters. Have you ever searched that out for yourself and not just relied on what someone else has told you?

We cannot look to a time in our lives when we have prayed a prayer and let that prayer give us assurance of salvation. Scripture says we are to “Examine ourselves. Test ourselves to see that we are in the faith!” (2 Cor. 13:5) It doesn’t say, “Did you pray the prayer?” If we have been saved, our lives will look different than they did prior to our salvation. I have told you many times, it is not our works that save us, but it is our works that demonstrate that we are saved. You can find the tests of assurance of salvation in the book of 1 John. “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life…” (1 John 5:13). This is the reason he wrote the book! He wouldn’t have needed an entire book on it if the only test for ourselves was, “did you pray the prayer… and were you sincere?”  People who have prayed a "sinners prayer" and look nothing like 1 John says a believer will look are lost.

Ezekiel 36 talks about God taking our heart of stone out and giving us a heart of flesh. This is what He does when He gives us salvation and regenerates our hearts. The only thing required of us is complete surrender. Not good works… just laying everything down. When we do this, we are giving ourselves completely over to Him. We become a bondservant of Jesus Christ. Our lives are no longer our own. As a preacher once said, “The Gospel is free, but it will cost you everything.” The result? We will not be able to restrain ourselves from doing those good works, and someday, we will inherit the kingdom of heaven!


Jesus said in Mark 1:15, “Repent and believe in the Gospel.” Let’s take a brief look at repentance and believing -- the two things that demonstrate our surrender.


1. REPENT:


• Repent means to turn. To CHANGE. If I’m walking in one direction, it means I completely turn and walk differently. I do a new thing. Whatever sin I am living in, I walk away from and as God reveals other things, I continue to turn from them towards Him.

     o This is true in our lives as a whole. Before my heart was regenerated, I lived one way. After that day, I turned and started in a whole different direction as a NEW CREATION. (2 Cor. 5:17)

           The result? I now am disturbed by sin. It bothers me. That’s the Holy Spirit doing His job!

           I see the righteousness of Christ and desire that.

     o This is true in individual areas of our life that God reveals to us that need change. This changing process will never end! It’s called sanctification.

     o Repentance should be a daily occurrence in our lives. It is not a one-time thing.


• Is repentance a reality in your life? Do you continue to repent… to change… to become more like Christ every day? Do you hate the sin you once loved? Not just that you know that it’s wrong and shouldn’t do it, but do you HATE it? If this is true, this is great evidence of your conversion.


2. BELIEVE:


• Are you believing in Christ? This means that you SEE the promises of God in Scripture and believe that they are true.

• Faith is believing the promises of God.

• What are some of the promises we are called to believe? Scripture is FULL of them. If we truly BELIEVE in them, we will walk IN OBEDIENCE to them! Thus demonstrating the “new creation”.  Our obedience is what demonstrates our belief!
 *** If these things ARE true in a person’s life, there is great evidence of conversion. Our lives must LOOK different. “Old things will pass away. Behold all things become new!” Sin will bother you! You will desire righteousness. 


*** If a person says these things with their lips, but nothing has changed in their lives, and they go on living life like they always have -- that person needs to do a serious heart check and cry out to God. Eternity is at stake, and there is nothing more serious to be concerned about. Throw yourself on Him. Ask Him to change you, to regenerate your heart.


*** I remind you of this verse in Proverbs 14. “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.” If your idea of the Gospel is different than that found in Scripture, it’s time to re-evaluate your view of the Gospel according to the Scripture. See what is the TRUE Gospel, not your marble of what the Gospel is.