When the Gospel is Reduced to a Sinner’s Prayer

Jeff Clark posted an article recently entitled The Gospel of Sin Management and the Loss of Discipleship. We do violence to the gospel when we forget that we are called beyond a mere “sinner’s prayer” to a life of discipleship that imitates the life of Jesus. This might sound harsh, but it’s actually an integral part of the good news. God doesn’t just want to be an idea in your head. He wants to be alive in you – visible and active in your daily life. Read the commission we posted yesterday again. This is what you were made for.

From the article:

However, by reducing the story of Jesus, a story that calls people to a life of devoted discipleship, to a system of salvation that only asks people to make a decision, we effectively short-circuit the power of the gospel. As McKnight says, ‘we have created a salvation culture, not a gospel-discipleship culture.’

However, a ‘just believe and you won’t go hell’ approach is one that Jesus never employed. His approach was simple, yet demanding — ‘follow me.’ If you want to be my disciple, consider the costs, and place me first. And, if you cannot make that kind of commitment, you cannot be my disciple (see Luke 14-25-35).

Image by kelsey_lovefusionphoto. Sourced via Flickr.