The Danger of an Incomplete Gospel
Have you ever met a Christian who has fallen away from the Lord? I know there are a lot of reasons why this happens to people. But there is one re-occurring reason that I have been seeing more and more recently: They accepted an incomplete gospel.
Here is what I mean. Their moment of conversion went something like this: “You should accept Jesus into your heart because God loves you. He wants to bless you. He has a purpose and a plan for your life. God has good things for you. If you accept Him, He will protect you. Your life will be better and you will get to be in heaven with Him forever.”
I wonder how many of us got saved like this. In fact, if that’s all there is to it, who would ever not want to be saved? Hear me out: the statement above is not untrue. God does love you and does want to bless you. He certainly has a plan for your life, can protect you, and has made a way for you to spend eternity with Him. But those statements alone are incomplete.
Just telling someone about God’s blessings and love is misleading. And desiring blessings and happiness from God is a fragile motivation to get saved. It’s also a motive that will crack under pressure.
I cannot tell you the number of people I’ve met in the United States who used to follow God but they don’t want to anymore. The reason? Nine times out of ten it’s because they are bitter or resentful toward God or other people for things going badly. They didn’t get what they thought they had bargained for. They thought God was made for them, not the other way around. Then they blame God when they suffer. They believed an incomplete gospel.
Think about it this way: that conversion statement above wouldn’t sell in many parts of the world where it’s extremely dangerous to be a follower of Jesus. It also won’t work for our Muslim friends; if they chose to follow Jesus it doesn’t guarantee they will have problem free lives, in fact they may experience a whole new set of problems! One Pastor in Northern Nigeria says this to any new believer: “You have come to suffer.” John 16:33 says in this world we will have trouble but that we can take heart because Jesus has overcome the world. The Bible is clear in many instances; salvation is free, but there is a cost to following Jesus.
The truth of the gospel is that God does love us; He sent His son Jesus to die for sinners in desperate need of His grace. He paid for our sins and was raised victorious. We have a choice to accept Christ into our lives and that is exactly what He wants; God wants your life. He wants all of you. And yes He has a plan, but it might not be our plan. It might not be the American dream, suburban home, 401-K plan. Maybe it is. But it’s His plan, a plan to bring glory to His name, and a plan that stretches beyond just us, and it’s far better than our own plans.
There’s no promise that life will be easy, but God does promise that you will never be alone, that He will give us His strength in times of need, that you will experience intimacy with your Creator and that there is victory in the end. We worship God because He alone is worthy, not so we can get something out of Him. And until we grasp this, we will always feel the need to “sell” something to our Muslim friends.
Jesus tells a story in the Bible about two men, one who builds his house on sand and one who builds his house on the rock. When the storms come, the house on the sand collapses. But the one on the rock stays strong (Matthew 7:24-26). The foundation that we build our faith on will determine how we respond to suffering. May we always find ourselves on solid ground, and be able to confidently share with others a gospel built on a strong foundation.