"It is a false gospel which says that you are ok and God just wants to improve you. No, God wants to remove all the false foundations and beams you have erected in your house and replace them entirely with new ones. The gospel is not about moral improvement but about making a new man. Our inability to grasp this means that we have a serious gap in our apprehension of the gospel. Our identity as Christians is subverted when the holes in our lives are filled with anything other than Christ. Our relationship to God and others suffer as a result.I want you to take a close look with me at a passage in 2 Peter 1:3-8.
“His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.”If you are going to take away anything from this article, take this away: The reason, Peter says, that your Christian life is ineffective and unfruitful and still laden with sin is not because you have not tried hard enough, but rather, that you have forgotten the gospel … forgotten what Christ has done for you. You have forgotten to apply the gospel to every situation.. The ramifications of this are profound. And take note, Peter also says that in the gospel He has provided everything we need for life and godliness NOW. This is why it is so essential for Christians to gather together every week to encourage one another and hear the pastor remind us what Christ has done, and is doing for us, through the Holy Spirit who unites us to Him. The people Peter describes in the above passage are nearsighted and blind to how the gospel applies today for them as Christians."
This article was actually a response to a book titled "How People Change" and reviewed here.