It’s becoming very hard these days to find a Christian who can correctly state the Gospel. Gospel is becoming a rare thing. I don’t know if this is my experience only. It is hard to find a church that preaches Jesus Christ.

If you go to a bookstore, titles such as “Your Best Life Now” or, “Take What Belongs to You Now” are sold in millions. The name of Christ is included in those kinds of books but Christ is nowhere to be found.

So, what is the Gospel? If I ask you today to tell me what Gospel is, how do you answer me?

This is how the Bible puts the Gospel:

“Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,” 1 Corinthians 15:1-3NASB

And Paul continues writing:

“and that He[Christ] appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.” 1 Corinthians 15:5-8NASB

I mean, I can see the Gospel clearly from verse 1 to 3, but, I asked, what is the importance of verse 5 to 8?

These verses show us that the Gospel has eye-witnesses. The Gospel is not a fairytale. It has strong evidence that we can see and touch. Our faith stands on these witnesses, not on someone’s mystical and spiritual experiences.

But just like sheep, we all have a tendency of straying away from the Gospel. No wonder Scriptures see us as sheep. Just like us, the churches in Galatia were straying away from the Gospel. Paul worked hard on these churches and when he heard this news, he was hit hard. So, he writes to these churches:

“Paul, an apostle (not sent from men nor through the agency of man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead), and all the brethren who are with me,

To the churches of Galatia:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins so that He might rescue us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forevermore. Amen.

I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!” Galatians 1:1-9NASB

Wow! Wow! Paul, where are your love, pastoral and encouraging words you used to greet other churches like Corinth, Thessalonica and Philippi? What is going on?

Paul is really upset!

And he began his letter by stern warning, letting the Galatian churches who this letter was written by. This warning is for us too. Paul is a man sent by Christ to preach the Gospel. So, in a way, he is saying, “Listen up knowing your eternal life hangs on this!”

And right after he lets them know who the writer of the letter is, he directly goes to the Gospel, about our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Then, he tells them how amazed he is by their speedy denial of the Gospel, following a false gospel, and Paul doesn’t want to call the message they accepted as a “Gospel” because Gospel is a Good News and the Good News is all about Christ’s birth, death, resurrection! Anything that is outside of this is not gospel but a fairytale, one of those old fairy stories even if the name of the main character of the story is still Jesus Christ.

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

There are many different stories we’re hearing these days: About a man called Jesus Christ who died on the cross to make people on earth famous, wealthy and healthy! And the message of this Jesus is all about whatever people on this earth wish to have; and all they need to do to bring their dreams come true is by hoping and seeing in their “spiritual” eyes what they don’t have, imagining themselves becoming the most important person in the world, driving Mercedes or Ferrari or both; having bodyguards and as they imagine all that, what they hope will come true. And this kind of message attracts many because it sounds like the answer to this hard life.

Duh! Who doesn’t want a solution for this life?

No hardship! Why? Jesus took it all! No sickness! Why? Jesus took it all! No poverty! Why? Jesus became poor so you can be rich, and on and on. I mean, pick anybody on the street and tell him this “gospel” and do you think anyone will reject it, unless of course they happened to be true followers of the true Jesus Christ?

Working brain is not needed! Just be open and free minded so that your life on this earth will be the best NOW! But in a way this is true about them. There is no better life for these people other than whatever they get from this life!

NO! Not Christians! Christians are told to hope in the life that is yet to come. And as they wait for that life, they pursue three things: Faith, hope and love.

When they go to Jesus Christ, they need neither faith nor hope, only love since heaven is the place of love. So, the love they experience in this life will continue on in heaven.

Paul writes:

“But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.” 1 Corinthians 13:13NASB

What is faith?

The writer of Hebrews writes this way:

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1NASB

What do Christians hope for?

Listen:

“For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.” Romans 8:24-25NASB

And,

“For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:17-18NASB

Our hope is eternal! It cannot be seen in this life. Our hope is eternal life and home, the life we live with Christ, seeing Him with our own eyes, living with Him forever and ever! This is our hope. Because of this hope, we persevere! We wake up every morning having this hope in our hearts. This hope fills us with joy even when we go through the shadow of death.

As we read and study the word, we will always be reminded our hope, how our hope is real and true. What is that called? That is called faith!

“So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.” Romans 10:17NASB

As we abide in God’s word, our hope increases our patience, we patiently wait Christ’s return or until we go to Him before He comes back.

Since Christianity is a journey, not a life experience, in our journey, we stumble and fall but we get back up, fighting against sin, this dark world and the devil, saying to them, “I have the One I love! I don’t need you! I found what I need and He is ENOUGH for me!”

Our journey is called a love journey. And this love expresses itself in work. We cannot say, we love God and live as we like. If we love Him, we always strive to live according to His word. Jesus said, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” John 14:15NASB

Our faith expresses itself with our deeds and words, for faith without work is death and our faith expresses itself with work and our hope expresses itself in us through patience. So, Paul writes:

“We give thanks to God always for all of you, making mention of you in our prayers; constantly bearing in mind your WORK OF FAITH and LABOR OF LOVE and STEADFASTNESS OF HOPE in our Lord Jesus Christ in the presence of our God and Father,” 1 Thessalonians 1:2-3NASB (capitalization is added for the purpose of emphasis)

Do you see it?

What is your hope in this life? Who is the object of your faith? Who are you hoping in?

The word of God says,

“Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves!” 2 Corinthians 13:5aNASB

May God help us all! ///