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What is the Gospel?

During my early days in seminary I was in a class where a professor asked us what we wanted to get out of the next four years. Most said they wanted to find out how and where to start a big church. Others said they wanted to know the Bible or write a book. Some said they wanted to find a wife. When I said that I wanted to learn the gospel a suppressed chuckle rippled throughout the classroom. Some jokingly said “You gotta get saved man”. Others shared the “four spiritual laws” with me.

The next day, a guy who was very serious, shared with the class a message he said the Lord gave to him for me. It was stunning. The sense of it was that God would surely grant my request. I just about started to cry. My heart was pierced to realize God had such personal love for me. The other classmates did a double-take over this simpleton who said he didn’t even know the gospel yet was in a seminary graduate school.

Little did I expect that over the next four years my naïve thinking would be shattered by the realities of professional “Christian” hypocrisy common in this seminary (cemetery). Like King David learned from King Saul, and Jesus saw in the Pharisees, I too had to first learn what was NOT the truth so I would be forced to go directly to God to “learn” from Him what (Who) is the truth (Mt.11:29 /Jn.8:32/1 Jn.2:27).

Most people are familiar with the doctrine of the gospel. It is commonly heard on television, or for an hour on Sunday, when some fat cat preacher gets all emotional or intellectual. He concludes by leading people to pray a one-time prayer formula and begging for money. The doctrine or content of the gospel is quite simple. Paul says in 1 Cor. 15: 3ff “Christ died for our sins…was buried…He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures”. This is the basic fundamental Christian doctrine.

My question in seminary was what does this mean practically for you and I in the depths of our daily struggles with loneliness, direction and identity? Beyond the doctrine what is the essence of salvation in Christ?! Hypocrisy was not a viable option or even a temptation for me because I knew I experience the resurrection power of the living Jesus when I was sitting in the stadium at Notre Dame (see “crazy War”).

My quest was to grasp the depths of how the gospel could have the profound impact in me as it did in Paul. This man went through excruciating suffering. He said that he counted everything in this world as nothing because everything he had was in Christ. He had “fellowship” with the very sufferings of Jesus (Phil.3). He experienced a spiritual mystery of a deep cry “Abba! Father!” (Gal.3/Rm.8:26). This guy had killed Christians and now he was the most powerful of them all. He was completely transformed. He knew a joy and power beyond words. Could I ever know what he knew?

Paul’s love for Christ and the Father was deep and genuine. Paul spent fourteen years alone in Arabia learning the gospel (Gal.1:18-2:2. He would never imagine people would seriously consider the modern day cliché for salvation is a little one-time prayer formula written by one man for all to repeat. Line upon line of his writings reveal a man who was broken in his core (Gal.2:20). He was not looking to be a professional but a servant of a divine and profound revelation called the gospel. Surely he had met the living Jesus on his road to Damascus and continued in this relationship as though Jesus were as alive as He was in His bodily form.

I had grown up hearing the Sunday ministers preach “the gospel” to the church gatherings. They were all exactly the same boring message. Just agree with the doctrine of Christ and say the prayer. Preachers describe the gospel like someone being an authority on football when they never played a down. There is nothing real to any of it. It’s just the hype of pride and emotion. Today, so many people live under the letter of the law of the words of Christ as though this was the gospel. They get angry when told there is something more.

Our prayer is that some of you who read this may be at some point of disillusionment with the “gospel” of the established “church” system. You are looking for something real. You do not realize that you are looking for the very thing you may already claim to have; Christ. The question is will you humble yourself? Will you become a resolute contemplative in order to discover the Person of Jesus? You can find the truth of Jesus. Might there be far more to His revelation than what you now know to be true?

Our goal here in this web page is to utilize all these high-tech means to share with you THE GOSPEL! One thing we often say is that we have a problem with trying to express just five letters. No matter how many words we say, they are not sufficient to convey the reality and wonder of behind these five letters. Thus, we express the avenues of multiple dances, songs, plays and humor. We believe that through these efforts the joy and revelation of J E S U S is communicated. He is the essence of THE GOSPEL!

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The clincher for me was where Jesus says "Come to Me...and LEARN from Me" (Mt.11:29). How does one "learn" from an invisible Being? Jesus says the true church are those who learn the things of spirit and truth (not pretense and pomp) (Jn.4:24). Does such a work of the heart not require such things of which no man can describe? Silence, meditation, talking TO God are things of spirit and truth. In this mega-hype culture it can be impossible to force yourself into a stillness of heart. You must do the impossible! Start meditating on the Book of Psalms and the Gospel of John. Wherever you are for five or fifteen minutes. It will seem awkward at first. You will find many voices in your head and feelings of anxiety. You've got to LEARN to silence them. Solitude is essential!

You will find that the reaction by others to this quest, to go directly to Jesus, is treated with presumption; "Oh, of course. I know all that already". Men can work eight hours a day but are too lazy of heart to consider that God's love is of such mysterious and magnificent proportions so as to require a work of individual heart far beyond any passive prayer (Jn.6:27,29). Thus they fall short of His divine Presence. This is the essence of salvation! It was prophecied hundreds of years ago (Jer.31:33-34/Ez.36:26).

This is not the "salvation" of today. Rather it is the unbiblical "accept Christ" prayer-formula that produces plastic "Christians". McDonald's Christianity would have you believe that all you have to do is drive up to the "service" window of any preachers castle and get the salvation-to-go order of repeating a one-time prayer. As if the same generic prayer written for all to parrot has anything to do with the personal heart cry which God requires (Ps.51:17). Like everything in the American culture it is "processed" into an articial and refined response so as to make everyone the same and fit perfectly into their system about Christ.

The brethren in Corinth or Ephesus were the true church who lived as those "set apart" to love Christ rather than this world (1 Jn.2:14ff/Consider Acts 5:32). Luke explains that what Jesus "began to do and teach" in bodily form He now continues in His people in His risen state (Acts 1:1). Their identity was not in an affliation with a particular doctrine, or trying to make this world a better place, but in the power they beheld in their obedient lives looking for the city which is to come . They were uneducated and unlearned but their lives demonstrated that they had actually been with the living Jesus ( Acts 4:13).

Jesus revealed the world is full of religious deception; many "churches", cults and religions (Matt.24). How will you know the truth? Will you learn from a man or go to God? More than ever before, my friend, you must not just go along with everyone. The majority is wrong (Mt.7:13). Don't look at what men SAY. Tons of people claim to be an authority because they have a website or claim to have a following. Like armchair quarterbacks who never played a down of football yet pretend to know what's wrong. Look at their LIVES! Do they just sit around like anyone else claiming to be religious? Or do their lives stand out as a witness? Are they doing something that bears the cross of Christ (Mt.10:38)?

There is nothing wrong with going to a service to try and learn something but watch over your heart (Proverbs 14:23). "...A little leaven levens the whole lump..." (Gal.5:9). Hypocrisy is like toxic waste, it disintegrates sincerity and corrupts anyone with a heart. Don't give yourself over to "church". Learn and go on. You must not settle there. You must keep going. You must get beyond it to learn, build and discover a personal walk with Jesus. We can tell you it is awesome! Do you know His voice? Your life now and your eternity are at stake. This is about your capacity to walk in abundant life or abundant hypocrisy.

For surely there is a true church and is a false church. There is a false christ and a true Christ (2 Cor.11:3-4ff/Mt.24:24,23). Jesus beckons you to come to Him and find the posture of humility to become a disciple and learn directly from Him. His anointing is capable of teaching you all the things (1 Jn.2:27). The idea of God actually coming into your being can only be defined as a mystery (Col.1:27). David said "I have more understanding than all my teachers: for Thy words are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients, because I keep Thy truths" (Ps.119:99ff/read the whole chapter).

Jesus is waiting....If anyone is thirsty!

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