Do you love the gospel? I mean, really love it?
Because if we’re honest, it can be easy to love the gospel but forget it in our daily lives. Somehow, we think the mundane rhythms of life don’t matter against the backdrop of eternity.
The good news that freed you from sin and condemnation is not forgotten willingly. Instead, the worn paths of our routines cause us to become hardened to the glories of the gospel. We can fall in step with the culture, marching to a contrary gospel—a gospel that serves selfish desires rather than the needs of others—looking more like the world and less like Jesus.
How We Forget the Gospel
In his small but profound book A Gospel Primer for Christians: Learning to See the Glories of God’s Love, Milton Vincent gives a concise explanation for why Christians forget the gospel. This book is dripping with gospel truths as it displays the gospel from all angles. Second to the Bible, this book is what has most deepened my love and affection for the gospel and stirred my heart to worship.
Vincent says, “There is simply no other way to compete with the foreboding of my conscience, the condemning of my heart, and the lies of the world and the Devil than to overwhelm such things with the daily rehearsing of the gospel.”[1]
Did you catch that? Christians can forget the gospel in four ways: through our thoughts, our emotions, the lies of the world, and the Devil.
1. Our Thoughts
Vincent starts with “the foreboding of my conscience.” Sounds dark. What formidable things are lurking in our minds?
You’ve heard it said, “You become what you behold,” meaning what you look at with your eyes and listen to with your ears informs how you think about God and the world around you. The Bible says we are transformed by the renewing of our minds (Rom. 12:1).
What do you think about as you go throughout your day? Is it the gospel? Try speaking the gospel over intruding thoughts that skulk in your mind. Something I’ve found helpful is to memorize verses or narratives of the gospel. Soon what comes to mind are sweet gospel truths I can savor like candy.
2. Our Emotions
Next Vincent speaks of “the condemning of our hearts.” Why? Because the words we speak reveal what is in our hearts. And since we are born sinners, what is in our hearts is wickedness (see Jer. 17:9; Rom. 3:23).
We can think that just because we feel something, it must be true. But we should not use our emotions or feelings to soothe a deeper longing. Rather, we must filter what we are feeling through the lens of the gospel and what the Bible declares over us. “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). The emotions that can betray us and the condemning of your heart are not the truth found in the gospel.
3. Lies of the World
The third way Christians can forget the gospel is external to our mind and hearts—it’s the fallen world in which we live. The world is broken, and our increasingly self-centered culture can feed us lies reminiscent of the first lie in the Bible when the serpent said, “Did God actually say . . . ?” (Gen 3:1).
That question, pregnant with judgment, introduced the audacious claim that somehow God is not good and that he is holding back goodness from us. This seemingly innocent question can be the entry point for you to entertain lies about your life or about God. These lies can stem from good things, like thinking you deserve a better marriage, an expensive vacation, or a certain lifestyle. Before you know it, you’re comparing your idea of a picture-perfect life with a forgery, something that was never real to begin with.
By interrupting your train of thought with the gospel, you can stand firm in the truth of who God is.
4. The Devil
When I was growing up, I heard a sermon illustration I will never forget. It was a fictional story of a man passing by a large field of grain. He spotted a barn and stopped to look at what was inside. He found piles of burlap bags stuffed with seeds and labeled DECEIT. Confused, the man turned to find the Devil standing nearby. The man asked, “Why do you have so many bags of this?” To which the Devil replied, “Because they work so well.”
The Devil is looking for ways to deceive you. The only way Christians withstand his assaults is with the power of the gospel (1 Pet. 5:8; 1 Cor. 1:23-24; Eph. 6:16-18). We are vulnerable to the attacks of the enemy when we don’t first arm ourselves with the gospel. So, dress yourself for spiritual battle every day by preaching the gospel to yourself (Eph. 6:10-15).
Hold Fast to the Gospel
As Vincent describes, “The gospel is so foolish, (according to my natural mind), so scandalous (according to my conscience), and so incredible (according to my timid heart) that it is a daily battle to believe the full scope of it as I should.”[2]
Believing the gospel anew every day is a battle with our traitorous thoughts, our unreliable emotions, the temptations of the world, and the attacks of the Devil. Christians must hold fast to the gospel by rehearsing it to their souls every day (Rom. 1:16).
“Never be content with your current grasp of the gospel. The gospel is life-permeating, world-altering, universe-changing truth. It has more facets than a diamond. Its depths man will never exhaust.”[3]
[1] Milton Vincent, A Gospel Primer for Christians: Learning to See the Glories of God’s Love (Focus Publishing, 2011), 14.
[2] Vincent, A Gospel Primer, 14.
[3] C.J. Mahaney, The Cross Centered Life: Keeping the Gospel the Main Thing (Multnomah Publishing), 67.
