What is the gospel?  The facts of the gospel are clear. Paul explains it in all of his letters, most explicitly in 1Corinthians 15.3-8.  The gospel begins with the basic facts of Jesus life, death, and resurrection.  But the gospel is also the interpretation and application of these facts.  The gospel informs, guides, and judges all that we do including our doctrine, our behavior, our relationships, our leadership, our marriages, even our finances.  Before we understand HOW the gospel applies to other areas of our lives, it is important that we meditate on the basic.  It is denial of this basic understand that leads to all bad teaching & living:

1.  The gospel means I am accepted, therefore I obey;  NOT, I obey, therefore I am accepted.

2.  The gospel means work and live FROM my righteousness, not FOR my righteousness

3.  The gospel means Jesus dies the death I deserved on the cross, then gives me the perfect life I don’t deserve through the resurrection.

4.  The gospel is the news of what God our King has done through Jesus to save me, NOT “how-to” instructions on how to save myself

5.  The gospel is NOT that we develop a righteousness apart from God so that we’re deemed “good”, then owed and accepted, rather, that He develops a righteousness through Jesus and gives it to us freely.

6. The gospel is not that “it doesn’t matter what you believe, as long as you’ve been good,” but that “it doesn’t matter if you’ve been good, as long as you believe in Christ as your Savior”.

7. The gospel means Jesus is enough.