The Core Gospel

The problem: Death, sin, brokenness, the devil, and a severed relationship to God. Sin naturally causes death because sin is the opposite of God’s life and apart from God, there is no life. Therefore, sin is death and because all have sinned, all people are due to die. Sin is also a service rendered to the devil whereby the devil and his kingdom of darkness receives power. Therefore, to sin is to align ourselves with the devil and make ourselves enemies of God. Because of sin, fear, shame, idolatry, and unbelief, our relationship with God is severed and we live in a broken state apart from the healing of God’s presence and power. We live contrary to our design and creation and therefore break down and disintegrate by the power of sin, death, and the devil. God hates sin because it destroys the image that we were created in to resemble God’s goodness, it prevents us from becoming who we were meant to be, it leads to death and suffering, it injures others, and it makes us friends with the devil and thus enemies of God. The Lord also hates sin because it is offensive to His perfect love and goodness—it is a disgusting and revolting thing that instead of choosing the perfect God, we would choose lesser things, other spiritual lovers, and the passing pleasures of sin. In this way, sin is irreverent and insolent. How can created things be more worthy of our love, worship, and attention than the Uncreated One who made all good things? Our God is a Jealous God and He will not stand for the worship of other gods and idols and the worship of the devil through sin. A loyalty to all these lesser things will prevent people from entering into the kingdom of God since God will respect their free-will as they choose to make themselves enemies of God and choose death rather than life. This is the problem we see in John 3 that people refuse to come to God to be saved because they love the darkness rather than the light. It is their own choices that judge and condemn them to death.

Solution: Jesus defeated sin and death in His body on the cross so that we could be healed, reconciled to God, and receive immortality. Jesus defeated the devil by His death and proved God’s love to us in His suffering. By believing in His love, His blood cleanses our hearts and restores our trust in God so that our corrupted hearts can be healed. Jesus took on a human body and conquered all the weaknesses of our flesh through His perfect obedience and faith and then died on the cross to put a final end to sin so that those who are united to Christ receive His life and victories through the infusion of His indwelling presence as they continually abide in Him. Since Jesus conquered death, then when we become united to Him, death also cannot have victory over us and we shall be raised to life at the end of the age.

Means to receive salvation: Put your faith in Jesus and trust Him with your whole heart so that Christ’s Spirit can come to live inside you so that being united to Him, you will receive salvation. Truly recognize how much God really loves you that He would not withhold His very best so that you can be saved. Pray that God’s Spirit will come to live within you and live through you and empower you to turn from sin so that you can be healed from the damage that sin has done to you. Confess your sins and renounce all your evil practices so that you can be set free from the kingdom of darkness which the devil rules. Meditate on God’s love for you and thank Him so that your brokenness can be healed.

Essential Essence of Salvation: It is through being united to Christ’s Spirit that we receive total salvation. Jesus is salvation and all salvation is in Him. How do we know that we are united? Through faith and a life of continual transformation. True faith produces change. This change comes from a heart of genuine repentance and gratitude.

How to grow in your relationship with God: Seek to align your heart, mind, and will to God’s heart, mind, and will through growing in compassion and selfless love, conforming your mind to the Word of God and to the truth of who God is, and living a life pleasing to God by denying yourself to live for God and walking according to the pattern of life that Jesus walked.

The means of grace to kill sin, keep the fleshly nature subdued, and vivify faith: Prayer, fasting, meditating on the Bible, gratitude, love, Christian fellowship, songs of praise to God, believing what is true and renouncing the lies you have about God and yourself, denying yourself, and aligning yourself with obedience to God in all things and obedience to God in the calling He has placed upon your life. The primary way is willful faith—choosing to believe God in every circumstance. And the strongest faith we can have in God is faith in His love. Do not be double-minded so as to doubt God but believe wholeheartedly in His love. The other primary way is love—loving God and loving people. This is to be a doer of the Word (James 1:22). The third way is to always have hope in God and in the future. Together, they are the greatest virtues: faith, hope, and love (1 Corinthians 13:13).

Will Christians be saved unto the end? Yes, if they continue in faith and repentance, they shall be saved. But if they do not endure to the end, they shall not be saved. Pursuing God must be a priority, especially for new believers, otherwise, faith may fail and die. Sin can also weaken faith so that it dies so it is essential to keep fighting against sin and confessing sin to God so that one’s faith will prevail. It is only the humble who will enter the kingdom of God. Arrogance will keep people out because they do not rely upon the grace of God but upon their own works to save them. But forgiveness is not earned, it is freely given. Only the humble receive it. Only those with childlike faith enter the kingdom of God.

Steps to Receiving Initial Salvation:

Step 1: Understand the true problem, the gravity of the problem, and be convicted by sin.

Step 2: Have your heart changed through God’s overflowing love.

Step 3: Place your faith in Jesus and confess Him as Savior and King over your life.

Step 4: Verbally confess and renounce all present and past sins in your life.

Step 5: Ask the Holy Spirit to come live inside you and thank Him for His gift of grace.

Step 6: Turn from sin to be healed and so that your faith can be vivified.

Step 7: Continue to live by faith and not by feeling. Trust God alone and His grace to save you.

Step 8: The indwelling presence of Christ’s Spirit within you will have genuine sorrow and conviction over sin so that you will want to stop those sinful patterns and pursue God.

Step 9: Understand that salvation is not a mathematical formula but a relationship with God, so following these steps by mere intellect or willpower will not save you. Salvation results from a humble and genuine response to God’s love and grace through faith.

Step 10: Be baptized because Jesus commands it. Submitting to baptism is a tangible and objective action as a response to genuine saving faith resulting in this first step of obedience to God and dedicating one’s life to Christ. It is an objective reality that you can point back to as the time that you received salvation. Baptism is a sign of the covenant of salvation in which you have entered along with the first communion. A failure to pursue baptism is evidence that God’s Spirit does not dwell within you because God’s Spirit would lead you towards this simple act of obedience. Baptism is a sign of unification to Christ in His death and in His resurrection. When you go under the water, the old life has passed and when you are raised up, the new life springs up. Imagine your sins being washed away in the water and the new you coming out. This baptism is a sign for you and for the church for being a member of Christ’s body. It is also a means of grace to strengthen your faith in believing that you have really died to your old self with Christ and have been made new.

Step 11: Find a Christian community where you can grow in the faith, be strengthened and encouraged. Church is not going to a Sunday service; church is the body of believers building one another up and doing life together. Christian fellowship is more important than church attendance. Find a group of believers who can encourage you and who you can encourage.

Step 12: Align with God’s purpose for your life by finding and activating your spiritual gifts. A failure to use your spiritual gifts, to follow the prompting of the Holy Spirit and His call for your life could result in your faith suffocating and regressing back into sin. Jesus died and rose again so that you would no longer live for yourself but for Him. Therefore, live for Him so that you will truly be His spiritual inheritance and live as His ambassadors and priests to advance His kingdom to conquer the darkness of this world.

Evangelism for those who have now become Christians:

To convince people to believe in Jesus, avoid the sales pitch approach and communicate God to them relationally because God is a relational God. You’re not selling tickets to heaven, you’re communicating who God is to them so that they may truly believe in Him and have a relationship with Him. Treat people not as assignments of ministry but as real people who God loves. Demonstrate the love of God to them in both word and deed. Both are important to overcome the darkness and hardness of the evil heart so that the message can be truly received. Give them a taste of the goodness of God through your actions and gracious speech. Tell them of the destructive nature of their own sin. Pray that the Holy Spirit would reveal to you what it is that they personally need to hear from God or what they need to receive from you to show them that God truly knows them and loves them. Pray that God would direct you to the right people to speak to and what to say. Be sensitive to the Spirit’s leading and that small voice in your head by quieting your mind so that God may direct you to whom you may speak to. Those whose hearts are harder may take longer to win over to the kingdom of light but have patience and continue to shine the light of Jesus through your faith, love, peace, and moral behavior. Pray for people to be healed and blessed by God and to experience Him. Let them know that God sees them, knows them, and loves them. He died on the cross to prove His love for them so that they could be saved. Tell them how good God really is and how He has changed your life, given you hope, and how your faith is steadfast in Him. Even if you don’t have all the answers, that’s okay. You have your testimony and the good news of Jesus. Your testimony alone is powerful because God is undeniably real to you because you have experienced Him and you know Him and love Him. Your faith is firm in Him though you have not seen Him, you believe. And the gospel itself is powerful because it is the truth to set people free. When evangelizing, avoid trying to convert people to a particular version of Christianity to be saved. Don’t lead them to a denomination. Lead them to Jesus. Lead them to salvation. Lead them to the Father’s heart. Focus on the core message and don’t let all the in-house Christian denominational disagreements take your sights off winning their souls for God. Once they become saved, the Holy Spirit can lead them into these other truths regarding theology and doctrine. Don’t send them to hell because you were too adamant trying to convince them of your particular version of Christianity which they decided to reject.

Simplifying the gospel even more, it is essentially this: love God, love people. For more depth, read my articles on the atonement: Moral Influence, General Substitution, Recapitulation, and The Gospel of the Kingdom.