If you're like me and most Christians, you probably spent a majority of your life thinking that the gospel was just for non-Christians who needed to hear the message of God to be saved and not for existing Christians who already are saved.
The good news of Jesus's death, burial and resurrection is treated like the Christian faith's entry pass or membership rites, and then after that we leave it at the counter. But what if all the while, we should have never left the message at the ticket counter?
John Piper said, "You never, never, never outgrow your need for this gospel. You don't begin the Christian life with this and then leave it behind and get stronger with something else. God strengthens us with the gospel to the day we die." The message of grace is not one that is limited only to the concept of salvation.
No, the gospel is much more than that. It is also the user's manual which we live by. It teaches us to live by grace and in grace that is made available to us by the love and mercy of God. We need grace, not just when we receive Jesus as Lord and Savior, but in every single day that we live.
We need the good news of God's enabling grace as we walk in our lives of purpose, as we are sanctified progressively into the likeness of Christ (or at least as close to it as we can get) and even as we continue to love God and love our neighbours as ourselves.
Everything we do and everything that we are is an outcome and result of the finished work on the cross, and in all we do, we must do it in Christ and through the power of the Holy Spirit that enables us to do all things.
Romans 16:25 says, "Now to him who is able to establish you in accordance with my gospel, the message I proclaim about Jesus Christ, in keeping with the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past."
Through the gospel and through Christ alone can we do all things (Philippians 4:13), and it is only through that message do we live life and life to the fullest.
Isaiah 53:6 reminds us, "We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." It is this message that marks our walk because we walk by faith not by sight.
