Summation of the Gospel

At the end of it all, the Gospel of Christ is this: God will give you what you really want. If you want to be with Him, Christ broke through the power of death and has Satan’s power bound and gagged. You no longer have to be a prisoner to death. He made the way for you to be with Him, where previously, it was barred by sin and the grave.

But if you do not want to be with God, he grants that as well. Many people think it’s cruel that “God would send people to hell.” Let me assure you, God does not send you anywhere, but calls you out of death and into life. God does not send you to hell any more than the sun sends you inside your home. The fact is simply that to be inside your home is to be out of the sun’s rays, and to be outside of God’s presence is to be, in the strictest and undebatable way, in hell.

But you now have the ability to be in the sun’s rays, fully and freely. Many people complain that God is not very loving, because he does not accept us the way we are, but demand that we change into what He wants us to be. The sun must also be unfair then, because when I spend time soaking up its rays, I too am changed. The fact of nature is that the power you spend time with will change you. The things you love will always change you to be more like them – this is why the things you watch and think about and listen to should not be carelessly chosen. Over time, you always become like what you love.

So this is the gospel. We were in a room with no doors – a prison. Outside, the sun was radiant and beautiful, but we could not enjoy it. We became pale and sickly, held against our will. When Christ came, he walked into our prison, and made a door in the wall for us to escape through. Like fools, we say that it is narrow minded to believe there is only one door in the prison. But prisons always only have one door.

So now, we are faced with a choice. Do we choose to stay or do we choose to go? Once outside, you find that there are actual places to go in the world. There are adventures and people and light and love. You will also find that your time in prison has left you sickly and damaged, not fully able to set out. But the first step is to walk out of the prison into the light of day. After time, you will find yourself becoming changed. This is the Christian idea of sanctification – it’s like a spiritual tan – the effect of spending time in God’s rays.

So it is not unfair to say that Jesus is the only way to God. What is unfair is to blame God for you not going anywhere, while you stay inside the prison of your choosing.