Terry Storch

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The Whole Gospel

A few things in my devotional and readings leaped out today. I am reading the 'Philemon Explained | The Slave Is Our Brother' by Through the Word. 

Pastor Kris Langham said;

Incomplete faith is dangerous. Your blind spots, whether accidental or on purpose, can do a lot of damage.

And he also said this that touched and impacted me this morning. 

Get the whole gospel, and let it change your whole life. Change the way you see people. Like the poor. Prostitutes. Convicts and ex-cons, addicts and homeless, liberals and conservatives, special needs, mentally ill, the unborn, homosexuals, trans, different color, different culture, different religion, saints and sinners alike. God makes it real simple: love everyone. Just like Jesus loved you. 

Incomplete faith is dangerous and gets the whole gospel, and let it change your entire life. Such a powerful truth, the whole gospel! What is the gospel? The gospel is the Birth, Life, Death, and Resurrection of Christ. The Whole Gospel isn’t just Christmas baby Jesus and Easter the death and resurrection three days later. Sure, if we are Christmas and Easter Christians, we can enter heaven, but this is incomplete faith, and just a part of the Gospel. Stepping into the whole gospel and letting it penetrate your whole life and see the transformation begin. 

“Jesus came as a human being not to teach us how to go to heaven, but to how to be a fully alive human being here on this earth.” - Richard Rohr

Robbing hell and adding to heaven is important, and it was a part of a message that Jesus brought in his ministry...but it was just a part. This is just a piece of the whole gospel. As Rohr said so correctly, Jesus came to teach us how to be fully alive as a human being here on earth. 

For instance, let's take the pro-life movement. This, in my opinion, has become a political force that has very little meaning any longer because of how politicized it has become. The pro-life movement is not really “pro-life” it has become pro-birth and is significantly incomplete. People are becoming politically charged by this topic and standing on soapboxes of pro-birth and turning a blind eye from the injustice all around us when it comes to being truly pro-life. I know I may have just taken a baseball bat to a hornet's nest, but I think we have to take an in-depth look at the importance of the Whole Gospel. 

I do not believe we serve a God or follow a limited Gospel. This is not a zero-sum game where we are limited in what amount of love, passion, and compassion we can bring. The Gospel is ABUNDANT and complete. The Gospel is limitless and points us to an excellent example of Jesus’ life. I will leave you to wrestle with Pastor Kris’ thoughts.

Change the way you see people. Like the poor. Prostitutes. Convicts and ex-cons, addicts and homeless, liberals and conservatives, special needs, mentally ill, the unborn, homosexuals, trans, different color, different culture, different religion, saints and sinners alike. God makes it real simple: love everyone. Just like Jesus loved you. 

May our incomplete faith be transformed to complete, and our lives become full and the whole Gospel radiate from our daily walk. To God be the Glory. 

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter— when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. “If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.” - ‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭58:6-10‬ ‭NIV‬‬


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