Jesus, the Gift of God, Brought Us the Kingdom of God! The Gospel Gives Us All of Our Gifts from God!
This GOSPEL TIP is a follow-up to the short YouTube Video, “All God Has Becomes Ours In the Gospel.” See the box at the bottom for information about the video.
RECEIVING THE GIFT OF GOD PRODUCES ALL GIFTS FROM GOD
The gift of God is Jesus, his Son. Jesus brought The Kingdom of God, which he says is revealed by the gospel, which we are commanded to believe (Mk 1:14-15). When we receive the gift OF God, then the gospel says we receive all the other gifts FROM God because we are his sons and daughters. We are joint, equal heirs with Jesus himself (Rom 8:17). We are total beneficiaries of the Kingdom of God.
THEOLOGY AND RELIGION VS. THE GOSPEL
Theology is man’s ideas about God, and religion follows close behind, showing how to implement theology and make it work best by what we DO – the good things we do like go to church, read our Bible, pray, fast, give money, work in the nursery, attend small group, and give more money. Plus we must keep away from bad things like cussing, stealing, committing adultery, yelling at our spouse, kicking the cat and being a brat.
Religion is all built on the wisdom of man, and what man says we must do to be right with God, get God to like us, and get God to bless us and answer our prayers the way we want him to. Religion always begins with US – what we do and don’t do to try to get God to respond to us the way we want him to.
ANSWERED PRAYER AND THE GRACE OF GOD
All of us what to experience a better life in some ways. This is human nature. One way we get there is by prayer requests of God, and by using faith that we think demands answered prayer from God. This is how we view the grace of God. We think that the grace of God should bring us answered prayer to our prayer requests. Actually, God’s grace is much MORE than this, but that is another subject.
God does answer our prayers. In fact, Jesus says anything we ask for in his name will be given to us. But Jesus is speaking spiritually about his Kingdom. We try to mix natural earthly things with the spiritual, which Paul says NOT to do in I Corinthians 2. We want to take God’s spiritual Kingdom and control everything we want on earth and pray for. It doesn’t always work this way. God gives us ALL things spiritually, not always naturally. “Seek first the Kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.”
God’s Kingdom is meant to IMPACT our lives in this natural world – it’s not necessarily meant to let us CONTROL everything is this natural world.
THE GOSPEL, BROUGHT BY JESUS (THE GIFT OF GOD),
GIVES US ALL GIFTS FROM GOD
But the gospel is far different from religion. The gospel is God’s gift to us, and it’s freely given to us. ALL of God’s Kingdom is given to us it says in Luke 12:32. Rom 8:32 says that God didn’t withhold giving Jesus to us, and also gives us ALL things. Eph 1:3 says ALL spiritual blessings are ours, and II Cor 1:20 says we have ALL of God’s promises. Thus Paul refers to the gospel as being the “grace of God” (Acts 20:24).
I Cor 3:21-22 repeats the same thing twice: ALL things are ours. In the Parable of the Prodigal Son the Father tells the older boy: ALL that I have is yours. Can you see how this is a consistent truth in the New Testament? – EVERYTHING God has in his Kingdom he gives to us if we are in Christ, and if Christ is in us. Paul says he doesn’t withhold ANYTHING from us, and he says in I Cor 2:12 that part of the Holy Spirit’s ministry to us is to show us ALL things freely given to us by God so we don’t miss anything.
Now, you have to be tuned into God’s GOSPEL to see all of this. If you’re just tuned into MAN’S RELIGION, all you can see is YOU and what YOU have to DO to please God. As THE GOSPEL COACH I try to help the Holy Spirit out all that is FREELY yours.
This is one reason I refer to the gospel as ‘the impossible dream.’ See the TIP on this site by clicking here: http://wp.me/P1cSU4-gO
GOD RESPONDS TO US IF WE LIVE THE GOSPEL
Religion keeps us very busy trying to get God to respond to us the way we want him to, by means of prayer requests that are meant to produce answered prayer. But the truth is, when we live THE GOSPEL, God responds to us in the best possible way. Why? It is because it is the gospel of The Kingdom of God (Mk 1:14-15, Mt 4:23, 9:35). God wants us living in HIS Kingdom, not in ours – ‘the kingdom of self.’
To God, it’s not about what we DO for him, but rather what we RECEIVE from him. The gospel is totally ‘basackwards’ from religion, and even Old Testament ways. Romans 5:17 says it is when we RECEIVE God’s abundant grace and gift of righteousness then we reign in life with Jesus. Colossians 1:5-6 says that when we receive gospel truth, it is the GOSPEL that produces good fruit from us.
WE RESPOND TO GOD BETTER WHEN WE LIVE THE GOSPEL
This is how we respond to God: by living the gospel that Jesus came to bring us. When we do so, God responds to us. If we don’t live the gospel, then we find our relationship with God to be lacking. GOD is not very religious, and if WE try to be, we can’t connect with him like we can in the truth of the gospel.
Roger Himes, The Gospel Coach
To dig deeper into this, read the First Life Change Dynamic: http://wp.me/P1cSU4-dp
The video that I mentioned at the beginning is found here: http://bit.ly/uZxuz2
Here is a listing of all of the gospel videos, being produced at the rate of about one per week: http://wp.me/P1cSU4-bW