The gospel Part 5
There is Only One True Gospel
The Gospel is a divine encounter set up by God the Master Planner for the redemption of mankind. When the Gospel comes to your house, there is visible and undeniable transformation. In the words of a brother in Christ, the divine encounter can be likened to when a Mini Cooper collides with a ‘MACK’ Truck at high speed. The Mini Cooper will be almost unrecognisable from the impact, but the MACK Truck remains untouched and unchanged. The same MACK Truck could go on and collide with as many other little cars and still remain unchanged.
Now, the Gospel is the giant MACK Truck and every sinner a Mini Cooper. In a similar manner to the collision above, our differing experiences with the Gospel have one goal in mind, the transformation (salvation) of our souls. The gospel remains the same regardless of the person with whom it collides.
The nature and amount of alteration or damages inflicted on the little Mini Cooper do not redefine the invincible MACK Truck. It is not your personal testimony that defines the gospel but rather the testimony of the Holy Spirit concerning Christ.
Speaking to the children of Israel through the prophet Malachi, God said this of himself:
“I am the Lord, and I do not change.” Malachi 3:6a NLT
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord:” Deuteronomy 6:4 KJV
“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” Hebrews 13:8 NKJV
That same word which was in the beginning with God is still with us today and remains unchanged forever. The gospel is immutable.
The Apostle John wrote this to us under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit,
“We proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning, whom we have heard and seen. We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands. He is the Word of life. This one who is life itself was revealed to us, and we have seen him. And now we testify and proclaim to you that he is the one who is eternal life. He was with the Father, and then he was revealed to us. We proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen and heard so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.” 1 John 1:1-3 NLT
The Gospel does not change depending on one’s needs, social status or lack of it. There is not one gospel for the poor and another for the rich, one for the self-righteous and another for the ‘sinner’. We err when we define our ministries on the basis of our own personal experiences rather than on the gospel. For then we preach ourselves and not Christ. The apostles had this testimony,
“You see, we don’t go around preaching about ourselves. We preach that Jesus Christ is Lord, and we ourselves are your servants for Jesus’ sake.” 2 Corinthians 4:5 NLT
Blind Bartimaeus, the lame man at the pool of Siloam, the Samaritan woman at the well, Nicodemus the Rabbi, Jairus’s daughter, the man with the legion of demons, Cleopas and his friend, Lydia the great business woman, the girl with the spirit of divination, the Philippian jailor, the Ethiopian finance minister, Zacchaeus the Revenue chief, King Agrippa and Bernice, governor Felix and Drusilla…….and many others; to all these people Christ and the apostles opened the scriptures and preached to them nothing else but Jesus Christ.