“Mistaking the gospel for “right living” is one more common error. Sometimes people think that the news, the message of the Bible, is simply that we should live moral lives. Christianity is sometimes presented as nothing more than virtues—public and private…The gospel, you see, is not simply an additive that comes to make our already good lives better. No! The gospel is a message of wonderful good news that comes to those who realize their just desperation before God.” (Mark Dever, “The Gospel and Personal Evangelism,” Wheaton Illinois: Crossway Books; 2007, p.40) In this book mentioned above, Dr Dever tries to let us know that the gospel is sometimes mistaken for the wrong things. He says that the gospel is sometimes mistaken for personal testimonies and apologetics among other things. Indeed the gospel is not a message of “right living” as he rightly comments above. Some offer people the wrong gospel in theses instances. They suppose that our lives are in need of some minor tune-up in order to be improved. They wrongly suppose that the gospel is a message that helps with your broken marriage, wayward kids, alcoholism, etc, like some instant pill you can take. Albeit, God really wants you to be Christ-like in these areas, but we are not to mistaken this for the gospel. These are nothing but felt-needs. The needs are real but the answer is not only to get rid of the problem that is felt but to submit yourself to a Holy God and desire repentance, forgiveness, and turning to Him who can honestly lead you in the most important area of your life first. In fact, going for the felt-needs first only tries to allay the symptoms of a deeper disease—sin. Herein lays the counseling blunders that are caused daily by modern leaders. We are to be “root-cause analysts.” In other words, when we goepelize, we should always be clear about the gospel message. It should not be a “life-enhancement” message (Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort, “The School of Biblical Evangelism,” Gainesville, Florida, Bridge-Logos Publishers: 2004, p.26). The cause of any unsaved man, woman, and child’s distress in life is much more than their external disarray. It is an internal disruption, disintegration, and decadence. Their hearts are filled with callousness, enmity, and hostility toward God and, until they “realize their just desperation before God,” they will only try to alleviate the cancer with morphine and pain-killers and not with chemo-radiation therapy. They will only substitute a real cure for the superficial and temporary alleviation. They are therefore left powerless! The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. If it is the power of God, then we should let this be the instrument of real change and not our cheap substitutes. Beloved, let’s evangelize with this mind.
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