In the last writing, we discussed what makes your gospel of Jesus the right one. (Not the right one for you, but the right one.) I know that sounds funny, but today it is possible to be in a room with ten people, and all ten have different views of the gospel of Jesus. This teaching will be part two of that one. In that writing, the secret ingredients were found in two specific answers. First, the gospel we all believe and teach must be the one that came from Jesus and not what we want it to be. If you’re not careful, you can make the gospel a situational gospel that can bend to fit your situation rather than bring you into the truth of what God meant for it to say. The second part pointed out that the gospel of Jesus will always focus on the Spirit and not the flesh. This point makes the gospel of Jesus a matter of the heart rather than the flesh.
I realize many things need clarification in those two answers, especially the second one. You can find those clarifications throughout all my writings. You must remember that even though Jesus did many works of God in the flesh, His intentions were always to teach and reveal the Spirit. In simplicity, a spiritual gospel is a teaching that focuses on your heart and what happens in you rather than on what happens outside you. Jesus knows that the outward works will be correct if the heart is right. His gospel focuses on changing the inward person rather than trying to perfect your flesh. This was the primary teaching of most of the New Testament after Jesus revealed Himself to His apostles.
One of my favorite questions in the Bible that helps us define our gospel comes from David’s writings in Psalm 24:3–6,
3 Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in His holy place? 4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. 5 He will receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation. 6 Such is the generation of those who seek Him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob.
When you follow the two guidelines above, interpreting the Bible correctly and having a true gospel becomes much easier. With that said, problems arise when you ask people to focus on the Spirit and not the flesh. Not everyone wants the Bible to be about spiritual things. Many people would instead use the Bible to fit their physical situations so they can be comforted in the flesh. But true comfort comes from a peaceful heart that is confident in the Lord because eternal life is there.
In simplicity, a spiritual gospel is a teaching in which the focus is on your heart and what happens in you rather than on what happens outside you.
I have never understood why there is so much emphasis today on trying to prove that the Bible happened physically. The proof of faith is not finding archeological evidence; it’s having your heart changed by God from a sinful nature into the likeness of His divine nature. The proof that God exists is seen when you become like Him. To be like Him is to be spiritual in nature. It’s when His offspring live like the flesh has no more power because they have the hope of eternal life. We live as if we belong in heaven, not the earth.
The Bible wasn’t given to us as physical proof or a miracle guide to making God do what we want Him to do. He gave it to us to teach us how to be spiritual so that we can connect to God from an earthly place. It helps us learn what works and doesn’t work from those saints of God who were before us. It’s evident when reading it in the correct perception that true success comes when you focus on the Spirit of God to lead you rather than letting the flesh be your impulsive guide.
Two problems that can arise from a spiritual gospel.
I said all of that to reveal two significant problems that arise for many people when believing a spiritual gospel. Below I’ve listed both of them. I pray they will enlighten you and give you the foreknowledge to overcome them and walk in the Spirit.
1. People do not want to be accountable to God from the heart, just the outward appearance.
A spiritual gospel requires you to be accountable to God in your heart and thoughts. That’s why this focus of the gospel is not so popular. When people realize that they have to do not only good works in the flesh but also have clean thoughts, it can be troubling and tiresome to many. Desires of the flesh can be overwhelming at first and complicated to deal with. A gospel that tries to fix your flesh seems easier than one that wants to cleanse the secrets of your heart. When you have to start being accountable to your fantasies and daydreams, it will become a major wake-up call for those who say they want to follow a Holy God.
I’ve learned that many people want to be evil in their hearts while making their outward appearance appear presentable as good Christians. But the outward manifestation is not where sin works; it works in the heart. Therefore the heart has to be the focus of a spiritual gospel.
Jesus often taught His disciples this gospel by using the religious Pharisees as an example.
Matthew 23:25–26 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.
Mark 7:18–23 And Jesus said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, 19 since it enters not his heart but his stomach and is expelled?” 20 And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. 21 For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”
Most of our problems are inward, not outwards. The earth is not the problem and never was. The heart that is in each of us is where the problem lies. You will make the earth a good place if the heart is filled with righteousness. If your heart is filled with unrighteousness, you will only create evil works and make the earth bad. It’s not flesh and blood that will live in the kingdom of God; it will be sanctified saints of God who have clean hands and a purified heart who have overcome the world and all of its corruption. Let’s let David’s prayer be a guide for us today.
Psalm 51:10 Create a clean heart in me, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
2. Your focus is only on yourself.
Instead of walking by faith and allowing the love of God to change your heart, it’s easy to become more aggressive in the works of the flesh instead of following the Spirit. This happens when you begin to look inward and realize that your heart and thoughts are not clean. Outwardly you can hide your thoughts from everyone, but you struggle dealing with them, and they often condemn you. This pushes you to focus on trying to fix yourself. Instead of a spiritual gospel making you spiritual like it is intended to do, it can do the opposite in you and create a passive and selfish approach to the gospel.
Jesus often taught on the outward and demonstrated a spiritual gospel by using people and objects in the flesh to reveal the kingdom of heaven. This happened daily when He was on the earth, but He didn’t do it by what He saw in the flesh. He taught us that a true spiritual work focused on being righteous from the heart while being led by the Spirit to do many works of God in the flesh. The key to His powerful ministry was that He walked by the glorified word of God that was in Him, and He never judged by the flesh. Isaiah prophesied this in Isaiah 11:1–4.
1 There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. 2 And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. 3 And His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what His eyes see, or decide disputes by what His ears hear, 4 but with righteousness He shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and He shall strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips He shall kill the wicked.
Jesus was led by the Spirit and not the flesh. His righteousness came from within Him, killing everything wicked in His heart and flesh. Even today, His words will destroy the evil in your heart and bring you to the same righteousness that He walked in.
In all of this Jesus had a secret; He accepted that He was human and lived in corruptible flesh. He knew His flesh was weak, but His strength came from the Spirit. His teaching revealed a higher power in His Father because He trusted the Spirit to keep Him from sin. This is important because it allowed Him to focus on God’s will rather than worrying about Himself failing in the flesh. He proved a spiritual gospel is possible, and He has passed that on to us.
Proof of this is in His apostles. Their gospel was spiritual too, and it worked for them every day. If you watch their lives, they were servants of the gospel and weren’t burdened down by their flesh and its weakness. They looked inward and believed in a spiritual gospel, and everyone saw the fruit from it.
Putting everything inside of you and never allowing it to be true outside of you can be detrimental to your salvation. The point of a spiritual gospel is to make you spiritual while manifesting proof of that outwardly. You will need help with this, but that’s why God gave us grace so that He could cover our sin while He guides us to be free from it.
The answer to this second problem is to focus on the word of God that Jesus put in your heart. Focusing on the truth more than the weakness of the flesh will take your eyes off yourself and cause you to trust in God and walk in the Spirit from the heart.
Other potential problems that we will get to in later writings are,
You think that you are not spiritual if you don’t experience certain spiritual experiences.
It makes you passive in your faith because you are waiting for God to do everything for you.
People like to focus on the flesh because it is more satisfying.
Being changed on the inside is too difficult, and I don’t like being so vulnerable.
You don’t think the physical earth is important to your manifestation.
A spiritual gospel is meant to be problematic for those who continue to hang on to fleshly desires. If you want to follow the spiritual gospel of Jesus and be free from sin, get ready for the turmoil because the word of God is good at manifesting wickedness in your heart so that you can see it and kill it before it destroys your salvation.
Think spiritual and be spiritual. Plenty more to come on this in other writings.