The Gospel Gap and 2 Peter 1:3-9 taught me the importance of the gospel, where Jesus died to rescue us from our sins and offers us eternal life. But this information is sometimes found hard to describe as what we believe and how we act. How we live as believers, and for me, studying this also serves as a wake-up call.
Accepting the message of Jesus in all its forms, even if it is in the past, present, and future. Realizing that instead of focusing on what Christ has done for me in the past and what He will do for me in the future, I must stay in the reality of what He is doing in me at the moment, without forgetting what God has done to me from the very start.
The five biblical viewpoints recognizing the nature of sin, understanding that true change starts in the heart, trusting that Christ is at work in me right now, being ready for personal growth as a part of the Christian life, and living every moment in salvation and trust are like an organized plan for continuing to live out what I believe. And as I understand it, avoiding striving for greatness is the greatest approach to close the gap. It leads to a careful assessment of what the Lord has accomplished and continues to accomplish. And our faith changes from duties to satisfaction when we are reminded that we are forgiven, that His grace is working inside us, and that we are still developing.
I now see that there is a gospel gap every time I fail to understand the true nature of God's work. With that, I'm more encouraged to live out who I am in Christ, His boundless grace, and His amazing process of change and growth. My objective is to live a life that far more closely reflects the character of Jesus, in which my beliefs and my actions actually match rather than aiming for perfectionism.