What is the Gospel?

What is the beginning, the center and the end goal of our lives? Is it an intelligently calculated system? Is it my own personal realization of what is good and right? Is it my own achievements that continually develops me until I eventually mature into godliness? Where does the power originate from? Where does the will originate from? Where does the turning point originate from? In my entire life I have never been able to answer these questions fully. There are several reasons for this: As a Christian we don't follow after a system, but a Person, our Lord Jesus Christ. The Gospel is Jesus personally in Person! We follow HIM. This following stems from me believing in a personal Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. This does not just mean that I believe that Jesus was resurrected and lives, but also that this faith causes my entire practical life to change. There are many characteristics that I have as a person from which my opinions originate, the reasons for which I cannot offer any visible grounds. I believe and do things that go against the stream of the masses, the reasons which aren't always comprehensible to others and sometimes even cause antagonism. By following the Lord Jesus Christ I take a definite decision to leave the incentive system of the world and to follow the love system (which Jesus lived). My definite goal is no longer a quest after earthly, materialistic success which is dependent upon human achievements, but to examine and follow after Christ and live in unity with Him. My earlier materialistic approach to the world is replaced with my relationship to other people whom I approach with the love of Christ. The new man is the born again child of God, the end product of his Redeemer. A person finds himself as a new man before God in that moment when his eyes are opened for the first time and he experiences the redemption in Jesus Christ as a FACT. It is not comprehensible to us. But, our eyes are immediately focussed on the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not possible to try and save someone by force, by logic or through our own righteousness, we will always fail. We cannot find any peace with our human logic. God has to change our hearts, humble us and give us an obedient heart which is submissive to Him and loves Him!

Only once we have learned to trust in God and don't try to control ourselves, we are able to let go and let God. We will then experience what it is to be lead by God. Only then will we acknowledge that the battle of the relationship between man and God has been won and is no longer neutral. The objective relationship to the problem has its grounds in self-delusion. This self-delusion does not excuse people from all responsibility, it is quite the opposite! In that God has enabled us, we have a responsibility to bring others to Christ. We, as born again children of God, now have the responsibility to show the world that it is possible for God to sanctify us, to change us into a relationship with the Lord and that we have been sanctified and justified to give Him glory. The central work (Hebrews 9:12) of our sanctification has been done for us through our High Priest, the Lord Jesus Christ, when He redeemed us on the cross! He died for our sins! Through His crucifixion all our sins were forgiven! Paul Washer said it is incomprehensible how God achieves it to take the degenerate nature of the natural man and convert the man into a totally new person. This is a true miracle which we ourselves cannot comprehend. But, God can do it! And we believe Him and in Him. John 3:8 says “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.” The born again person, born of the Spirit, has no past (his past is wiped out) and no future (all has been accomplished for him through Christ Jesus and nothing needs to be added) but only the present in God's holy presence. Our sins – all our sins past, present and future have been totally and unconditionally forgiven through the redeeming work of Jesus Christ on the cross! The Holy Spirit awakens our spirit and our faith, leads us into all truth and we are sealed with Him eternally which is proof that we now belong to God eternally.

Roland Schaufler