There are many different subjects that pastors, ministers, and teachers of the word of God everywhere in planet earth unveil to their congregations Sunday after Sunday from within the walls of the institution that we call church. We become quite comfortable in categorizing all of those subjects under the title, “the gospel”. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with what the definition of the gospel means, it is simply “the good news.”
However, I’m afraid that the majority of the men and women of God, including their listeners, are unaware of the message of mixture that they are releasing or receiving under that title. That mixture is fear with faith and being labeled the gospel. The humor I find in that is that there is absolutely no “good news” found in a fear message!
We the church, have become so inundated with a fear message that we simply believe we are hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ. We’ve used the gospel to scare people out of hell and into living right. We’ve used the gospel to tell people what is wrong with them and condemned them instead of revealing what Jesus Christ did on the cross to reconcile them back to Himself and release them into a new identity of who they have been made IN Christ.
John reveals in the gospel of John 3:17, “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”
On the other hand, the gospel is not just all about redemption, but restoration as well. The word of God states in Luke19:10, “The son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost.” Christ came not only to seek and to save men from a fallen nature but to restore a kingdom that was lost in the fall of mankind in the garden of Eden.
So the goal of the gospel is not merely to witness to all nations or just to preach to all nations for them to be saved, but to disciple all nations into maturity IN Christ. The “nations” refers to the entire sphere of culture. All that begins with the individual heart, but encompasses all of life: economic systems, educational systems, media influence, arts and entertainment, family structures, and political structures.
God rules over ALL of life! The Kingdom of God is not just concerned with the spiritual condition of a person which is better known to us as being “saved”. On the other hand, the Kingdom of God is not just concerned with the natural or material condition of a person alone either. The Kingdom of God is concerned with the reign of the spiritual over the material and the natural in THIS WORLD!
The “good news” of the gospel is that Jesus came and redeemed us from the curse of sin and rebellion and restored us to a right relationship equipped with divine authority and dominion, seated in heavenly places IN Christ Jesus. We are no longer the children of darkness, but we have been translated into the kingdom of the Son of God! We have an invitation to come up higher and to see everything in creation from a new point of view.
I encourage each of you that are reading this article to not be overwhelmed and perplexed by what you see in our surrounding culture and in our government but rather become “strong in the power of HIS might” and see things from God’s perspective. He is not worried or fretting about the current crisis. Why? It is because He has a family of sons alive in the earth who are redeemed by the blood of the Lamb and ready to restore the earth and it’s culture to the values of its owner, the Lord Jesus Christ!
Friends, we have not been called to escape the chaos going on around us in the present but rather we have been called to Invade, Influence, and Occupy. It is time to stop wallowing in “escapism” and start standing in authority in the position of victorious “occupation”.
Let’s preach the true and unadulterated good news of the gospel that from God’s perspective, “it is finished”! Regardless of the circumstances or surroundings, make a conscious choice today to only speak what the King and Lord of heaven and earth speaks. Be His ambassador……..BE THE CHURCH!
In Christ,
Pastor Kevin Gurley
KingdomFamilyOutreachCenter
17057 AL Hwy 75 Building 5C
Henagar, AL 35978
