Gospel Passion: The Gospel Has Not Served Its Purpose

I began reading the booklet A Gospel Primer for Christians and the first paragraph hits the nail right on the head:

This booklet is offered as a handy guide to help Christians experience the gospel more fully by preaching it to themselves each day. It is also offered as a correction to a costly mistake made by Christians who view the gospel as something that has fully served out its purpose the moment they believed in Jesus for salvation. Not knowing what to do with the gospel once they are saved, they lay it aside soon after conversion so they can move on to “bigger and better” things (even Scriptural things). Of course, none of us thinks this is what we are doing at the time, yet after many years of floundering in defeat we can look back and see that this is exactly what we have done.

Do you view the "Gospel as something that has fully served out its purpose the moment [you] believed in Jesus for salvation"? One way to know if you view the Gospel as only the entrance to the Christian life is to ask yourself, "Do I live in defeat?" Another way to know if you view the Gospel as only the entrance into the Christian life is asking yourself the question, "Do I lay the Gospel aside to move on to "bigger and better" Scriptural things?" Another way to ask this question is, "Do I think of the Gospel in any way when I am looking at the commands of God?"

Yet another way to think of this question is, "Am I striving to do the commands of God merely because they are commanded?" I would go so far as to say that if we have not thought of the Gospel in relation to our doing of God's commands, we are practicing religion rather than Christianity.

Johnny and Kate Brooks, over at Pure Christianity, explain it well,

Jesus came to fulfill religion and so after his mission, there is no longer a need for religion. I do not know about you, but that frees me to be who God created me to be.

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It really does not make any sense to live in bondage when freedom is walking and breathing amongst us (HT: Mark Hadfield of Made to Praise Him).

(Part One)