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There is a big difference between the philosophy of self-help and living in the Gospel. Compare the following:

In her sermon, The Battle of Attitudes, Pastor Taffi L. Dollar explains, "Your attitude is a determining factor in achieving success in life. Releasing your faith and staying in a state of expectation before God are the keys to seeing God move on your behalf. The greatest desire of the Father is for His children to be blessed. Part of being blessed is understanding the role you play in receiving that blessing. You must maintain a positive attitude."

Mark Lauterbach of Gospel-Driven Life explains in his article Living in the Gospel in an Age of Self-Help,

Any accommodation of the Gospel to self-help is a denial of the Gospel. The Gospel is humbling because it treats us as helpless and no one likes that (What do you think I am, an invalid? I can handle it without your help.') And when I tell people I am teaching them Christianity and all I am doing is putting Jesus name on some self-help schemes, I am preaching another Gospel.

So, what about all the practical? You do have to DO something, don’t you?

Well, yes, but there is a world of difference between dependent, humble application of the Gospel to life and self-sufficient, self-exalting self-help. If people leave my preaching confident in the rules and principles I have given them, I have preached a false Gospel. If they leave the room confident in the faithful grace and power of the Savior to work in them as they seek to obey -- I have preached the Gospel.

May the Gospel dwell in us richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

Chris Gonzalez presents some good questions on Gospel-Centeredness:

This morning we started a new series called “Pulse.” I am taking 4 weeks to get at the pulse of our ministry. We started with the gospel. We want to be centered on the Gospel. Everything comes out of that. I didn’t feel like I preached it very well, so I will have to trust that the Holy Spirit will do with it what he wants. As promised, here are some teaching notes from my message this morning. I hope it is helpful or clarifying…

Read his brief notes from his message this past Sunday here.

People outside the church sometimes think, "those hypocrites! You'd think those Christians would be better than they are if they try harder," while at the same time Christians within the church are thinking, "if I try harder you'd think I'd do better, but the harder I try, the less well I do."

Sometimes I begin thinking, forgiveness seems hollow. It's great and all that I'm forgiven, but I wrestle with the same sins all the time and I wonder if I am worse than I was when I first started out. What's wrong with me? Either I'm not connecting to what's real in Christianity or Christianity itself isn't real. The forgiveness part, I can kind of connect to and there's hope in that. And on Judgement Day, I may be finally forgiven, I really have hope for that, but maybe I'm just a second rate Christian. I can't live with the piety that other strong Christians have. Something is disconnected in my Christian life; maybe if I try harder? Or maybe just asking for forgiveness rather than permision is easier? Maybe I'm just a watered down version of a Christian.

But I think the issue here is I have actually under-sold the Grace of God while at the same time I'm thinking I've oversold the Grace of God and continually think I need to add more effort and more discipline if I'm really going to make things work in my Christian life.

I am in the midst of a series called, "Why Be Gospel-Centered?" of which, I have been graciously admonished that I have presented a great storyline rather than expressing Gospel-Centrality's distinctiveness.David Wayne, aka Jolly Blogger, has so elloquently explained Gospel-Centrality (aka being a Gospelist) and contrasted it with Moralism - a feat I have tried to do but failed. If you want to know what I'm trying to say, it would behoove you to read his article.

"The Gospel of our God-Centered God changes everything for His Glory and our joy." I received an email, recently, asking me what that phrase means. This quote is a concise expression of what it means to be Gospel-Centered. In other words, Gospel-Centeredness is a theological lifestyle in thought and practice. But in order to truly understand Gospel-Centeredness, we must first understand what the Gospel itself is. Clarity on what the Gospel is and is not is the crux of the matter. Confusion about the Gospel is all too common in Christendom today, including its implications to our preaching, teaching, basic understanding of the Scriptures in general, as well as its practical implications to every day life. What the Gospel is should not be confused with how it works out in our lives.

Graeme Goldsworthy said it best, "The main message of the Bible about Jesus Christ can easily become mixed with all sorts of things that are related to it. We see this in the way people define or preach the gospel. But it is important to keep the gospel itself clearly distinct from our response to it or from the results of it in our lives and in the world."