At the center of the good news of the gospel is Jesus Christ.

The ultimate benefit of the gospel is not that we can now do good works, or that we won’t go to hell, or even that our sins our forgiven as great as all those things are– the ultimate benefit is that we get to know Jesus. The glory of the gospel is that Jesus desires intimacy with His children – he may not give us a painless existence – he may not grant us the longed-for perfection in this life – but he will give us that one thing we need the most – Himself. Everything we do I believe must be soaked in this Gospel.

Everything.

But this Gospel only seems relevant if we recognize and acknowledge our brokenness and acknowledge its depths no matter how long we have been a Christian. That is why transparency is so critical in my mind to being the community we in the church would like to be. To the extent we hide or minimize our own need we deny and minimize grace. Grace is the power that enables the Christian living we so long to see.

Nothing else.

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