Gospel Living

I came across a great quote the other day reading a book I highly recommend, The Prodigal God, by Tim Keller.

"Religion operates on the principle of 'I obey - therefore I am accepted by God.' The basic operating principle of the gospel is 'I am accepted by God through the work of Jesus Christ - therefore I obey.'"

We believe this principle at the moment of salvation when we cry out to God to be saved but then it must be worked into our lives at the practical level. I call it gospel living. We must take it out of our doctrine file and put it to work every day. If we don't make an effort to do this, we will inevitable go back to our old way of thinking and doing. Listen to Keller again:

"We habitually and instinctively look to other things besides God and his grace as our justification, hope, significance and security. We believe the gospel at one level, but at deeper levels we do not. Human approval, professional success, power and influence, and family and clan identity - all of these things serve as our heart's 'functional trust' rather than what Christ has done, and as a result we continue to be driven to a great degree by fear, anger, and a lack of self-control...we only change permanently as we take the gospel more deeply into our understanding and into our hearts. We must feed on the gospel, as it were, digesting it and making it part of ourselves."

This has been such a good book for me to read since my tendencies are to do spiritual things to be approved by God instead of basking in the finished work of justification through his Son's cross.