A common thread in anyone’s life that has a valid claim as one following the ancient paths of devotion is a gospel shaped life. This entails having a living doctrine of the gospel that transforms your life. Doctrine is often accused of being dry, sterile, or even dead. But a true Christian doctrine is exactly the opposite. It has a blood stained cross and an empty tomb at its core. Christ’s substitution upon the cross for us should not be a boring concept. It is more than a story to tell at Easter. When embodied, it brings life in all its fullness. When we look to the Bible, there are at least four radical things that the gospel does when we truly encounter it.

1. It provides forgiveness. The pressure of carrying our own sin is what goes wrong with most religions. We cannot be further shaped by the gospel until we offload the tendency to carry our own sin. We offload this at the cross.

2. It removes any condemnation. Even if we offload our sin at the cross, most of us struggle with the guilt that’s left behind. But that guilt, also, is removed when our life is shaped by the gospel. We can live a life free from shame. We can wake up each day to freedom.

3. It provides our life with significance. Another tendency of ours in our human state is find our significance in all the wrong places. As the gospel shapes us, our freedom is deepened by our growth to label ourselves as a child of God, and need nothing else to identify us.

4. It shapes our heart to imitate Christ and therefore love the world. Justice is clearly a theme of the Kingdom of God. The only hope of finding true justice is if we have our hearts transformed to love as God loves.

1 John 1:9