Half a Gospel
IHOP Prayer Room
This morning I went to the Forerunner Evangelism Institute’s weekly “open house”. It was really sweet; about 30 or so people in the room with very simple, unpolished worship, prophetic prayer (the woman praying for me had a picture of me with a spear that I was going to throw a long way, with a message on the end of it), and a message by David Vagnoni (sp) on preaching repentance. Wow. Fantastic.
What I realized through this is that I’ve been preaching half a gospel. I’ve gotten pretty decent at the “God loves you” part when I’m speaking to the lost. The problem is that it leaves them with, at best, a warm fuzzy feeling about God, and perpetuates the belief, which is actually NOT true, but most people believe, that God forgives everyone (especially if they, whoa, say “sorry!”)–in fact, it simply cements the belief that what people call “grace” is more like an umbrella under which people have license to do whatever they want. What we need to be calling to is the flip-side of the “faith” coin: Repentance.
We have given ourselves over to the belief that if we can just get someone to make that step (which is, granted, a huge leap), that we have done our job and that person has eternal security. NOT TRUE. Every prophet, John the Baptist, Jesus and all the Apostles preached repentance. We can do no less. What does Jesus Himself say? “Repent and believe the good news”. It’s not as if John the Baptist had the pre-gospel message when he gave people the baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. In actuality, it’s one side of a two-sided coin. Without either side, what we call “Christianity” is one-dimensional, and, actually, false. However, if we only preach the repentance side, we’re guilty of a similar error. Other “religions” have repentance, but in the sense that it makes the person a more law-abiding citizen, a la Mormonism, Islam, etc. Repentance and Faith must go hand in hand.
Here’s a practical road map for what I’m relating here:
- See Sin. The person being asked to believe must acknowledge that they are actually talking about sin. Not preference, not expedient behavior, not something he “couldn’t help”, but actual sin.
- Hate Sin. People have a lot of excuses for their sin. Nobody hates their sin at first. They may hate the consequences (e.g. drunkenness causes people to crash their cars or be mean to their family), but they actually enjoy the sin. So they may even see it as sin, but they must look squarely at its consequences and learn to hate it.
- Forsake Sin. The problem once people get to hate their sin is that they don’t know that there is power not to do it anymore. But here’s a question for that person: If God was willing to help you, and to give you the power to turn away from it, would you? (Hint: If the answer’s no, maybe they haven’t fully understood #2.)
Here’s what the teacher said toward the end: That we need to be “as gentle as possible but as stern as necessary.” People who do not respond to subtlety must be spoken to in plainness. But broken people need gentleness. A good surgeon doesn’t cut healthy flesh: he knows how to discern where the disease ends and the healthy flesh begins. But Jeremiah 1:17 warns us: When we are delivering God’s message, He says, “Don’t break down before them or I will break you.” In other words, let’s not water down God’s message for him. Jeremiah 6:13-15 warns about messengers of false peace. I don’t want to be one of them!
But hey, you know what? Repentance isn’t BAD news! It’s GOOD news! I have a theory, that if the Church really woke up to what salvation is and what God wants to do and has done in the life of the believer, we would change our prayers from “help us not to be afraid” to “God, i’m so full of joy about your love and your power and willingness to forgive! Who can I tell next?”
April 16th, 2009 at 11:25 pm
Thanks Babe for relating what you’re learning to us back home so we can learn with you. It makes me want to worship and evangelize with my brothers and sisters, Amen. L, your prince charming
April 18th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Thanks, honey. I’m tired of playing around. God burns with desire for human beings.
April 18th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Amen Sis. The IHOP sounds amazing. I am thirsting for real corporate worship…
April 22nd, 2009 at 10:30 am
I liked how you said, “Repentance isn’t bad news! It’s GOOD news!” It truly is. This is something pray for my students all the time – that they would desire repentance and not be afraid it.
Thanks for sharing,
Noelle