So, you say you believe the Gospel. You say you believe that Christ died for your sins—that He died to nail them on the cross; to provide forgiveness to you for the sins in which you had lived; to give you deliverance from them. You say that you believe that Christ was buried, and that you too have buried the old man of sin that once was you. You say that you believe that Christ rose from the dead, and that you, too, have been raised out of the deadness of sin, and that you now are alive as a new person in Christ.
Now, you must CONFIRM what you SAY. If it is true when you say you believe the Gospel—the Good News of your deliverance from the old life, then we must see that being worked out in your daily life. In other words, the decisions you make and the actions you take should be radically those of a new life in Christ, not those of the old life of sin.
The decisions you make on Sunday morning and Thursday night concerning church—do they confirm that you believe the Gospel? The sinful habits of the old life—are they gone; are you putting up a good struggle to rid yourself of them? Your decisions concerning your language, your dress, your entertainment, do they confirm a new set of values based on a new love for a wonderful Savior? Do you find the new life restrictive, or is the Gospel actually Good News?
Don’t fail to notice that Paul, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, couples our quest of confirming the Gospel with Grace. If we bypass this important ingredient, we’re stuck with dead reformation and legalism. That is definitely not good news! The Good News of the Gospel is a new, vibrant life in the risen Christ.
