The following article is a blend of thoughts ideas and observations from my newly released book entitled “When The Gospel Is Not Enough.”

Let us start off by first boldly declaring that indeed the Gospel ‘is’ and will ever be enough for the saint or sinner because it was birthed in the heart of God. In its simple message you find the power of God for salvation to all who believe and who come by way of the cross of Jesus Christ to the Father. It is a message that shatters the darkness of our human condition with a hopeful radiant light of truth that reaches out to the sophisticated and polished society crowd and down to the lowest depth of human depravity offering life, forgiveness and cleansing all through a Saviors mercy and grace. The Gospel is ‘good news’ because it takes all of our broken, shameful and shattered existing preconditions and wipes the slate clean as we open our hearts to receive He who is the author and finisher of our faith Jesus alone. With no guilt or condemnation, we offer Him rags and in exchange receive manifold riches of His love, affirmation and acceptance and add to that peace and joy, and ah yes, eternal life. This dear friends is just the beginning of what the good news is all about; all paid for us in full on the cross of Calvary where Jesus died in our place.

So then when is the Gospel ‘not’ enough? The Gospel is not enough when and foremost, we remove the ‘cross’ from its message. For the cross is the central heart and power of the Christian message. The cross not only highlights and underscores the death of our Savior and His crucifixion on that initial wooden cross but also the cross that Jesus demands that every disciple of His take up and carry to follow after Him. This cross is embodied with the denial of our self; our will, our desires and our rights -all to be laid aside in order to follow Him. Certainly we can we refuse and go our own way, but for those of us who have gone our own way we are well aware of the darkness, despair and sense of emptiness we experienced in those former days. Even those initial glorious joyful moments as new believers far outweigh the years spent chasing the wind all the while picking up trunk loads of undesirable baggage that take us years to shed and undo the personal ramifications.

The North American Christian Church in its attempt to attract the lost and hurting of the world to enter within its doors has removed the cutting edge of the word of God. ( Hebrews 4:12) By removing the ‘cross’ and its personal cost out of the Gospel message it has focused on promoting the benefits secured for us by that sacrifice. You see the cross is and always has been an offence to the natural man. For God to demand that I hand over the control of my life to Him becomes a stumbling block to many unbelievers as well as Christians who will allow God only so much access into their private lives. The bottom line is if we love our lives too much the cross that Jesus bids us to carry will seem a price far too high to pay.

God’s ways are so much higher than our ways and our own ability to comprehend what He is doing in the present circumstances or down the road of our own lives as well as everyone else on the planet. The Bible teaches that the natural man cannot receive spiritual things they are beyond his/her capabilities to understand.(1 Corinthians 2:14; Isaiah 55: 8-10)

The Gospel or the Word of God was not enough for our first grandparents who though God had given them all things to enjoy and fulfill them chose to reach out and take the fruit that God had warned them not to eat. There was no lack in that Paradise or in God’s all inclusive resort, what was lacking was found in Eve and Adam.

Eve had stayed too long and had gazed too long at the tree and its fruit. Why was she not put off by a creature who could speak words that contradicted her Creator? It would seem that the enemy had managed to arouse in her an irresistible desire that she had never known before, but was now awakened by this insidious trespasser. “SELF” was awakened! An aspect of her person that though she was her own unique person with an autonomy to think and chose on her own, freedom to come and go this new faculty of her humanity was now awakened to strike out on her own independently and in defiance of God’s warning. What more did she need? What was there that she could have wanted, she had it all, or did she? In her mind she obviously felt there was still one thing lacking, the result of the serpents enticing words, alluring Eve elevating her desire while disregarding any consequences.

‘Not enough’ best describes the human condition that underscores our unquenchable desire for more! For Eve the only thing she lacked now was to be as God. Take and eat and in a moment you shall be as God knowing good and evil; the hook was set and the consequences are still with us.
Self with its many facets of self exaltation, self serving, self absorbed, self- self and self it is the root cause where all our sins can be traced back to this one thing of serving self. Down through human history it is the one factor that has led to untold human sorrow and tragedy. Wars, poverty, prejudice, hatred, envy strife and what have you are basically the results of having self in the number one position with little regard for others in its quest for more fame, power, money…

The devil has received the lion’s share of blame over the years for humanities morass; however Christian and unbeliever alike have given him more than enough gun powder as it were to take our weak and fallen mindsets and bents to wreak havoc on one another. Our sad state of affairs is the fruit of our own darkened hearts, not the devils. Certainly he will tempt, allure and manipulate our desires to his advantage and to our demise but he works with what we give him and the ground we surrender to him.

Every time we deviate away from God’s word and chose to disregard His clear teaching, we like Eve in essence are saying ‘God everything You are and everything You provided is still not enough there has to be more.’ However, the truth is “According as His divine power has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him…” (2 Peter 1:3)

The ‘more’ we continue to reach for may fall outside the parameters of God’s promise to provide our needs, every last one of them. What we may be asking for and crying out to God for is to satisfy our unbridled fleshly lust that war against the restful inner contentment God promised to provide for in His word. If we find a restlessness or an unabated strong desire within that can never be satisfied with the provision supplied we had better begin to seek God for this will certainly in time open a door for the enemy to plant doubt in our hearts in regards to God’s goodness and His all inclusive provision to supply all our needs. (Phil. 4:19)
Remember Eve was brought to the place where there was enough doubt cast into her heart to believe that God was withholding something very good back from them. Her reaching forth to take the fruit was not faith motivated but fear motivated. She was in the process of taking hold of a position of power and authority that would guarantee that she would be in control of her own destiny no matter what God would do or decide in the future. Tragically she was wrong.

Let us fast forward these thoughts to our present day Christian Church. We have had perhaps three decades where preachers have methodically indoctrinated large segments of the church to its demise with a metaphysical faith, a power of the mind belief system that is not Biblical and that has veered us far and away from the restful habitation saints should be enjoying in fellowship with Christ. We have been erroneously taught that we could have anything we wanted from God if we could just believe it so. This to be sure is not the faith that the Bible teaches, this is in fact a perversion that has come into the church undetected and has virtually transformed how the church understands faith. The North American Church has departed from a sound Scriptural understanding that anything we need we can ask of God to receive, albeit according to His will.(I John 5:14,15)

Is God good? Does He care for every detail of our personal lives as well as those we love? If we believe that scriptural fact then we will not have any problems when we seek the face of God for our request knowing full well that He indeed loves us and will care for us as He sees fit in answering our prayers according to His will.

Here is where things get dicey! That last statement ‘according to His will’ is interpreted by many Christians as unbelief. They will tell you ‘never to pray according to His will,’ in fact they will tell you straight out that as Christians we already know His will and since we have the mind of Christ anything we ask for is His will because He put those desires in our hearts to ask Him! You see it is no longer about leaving the answer with God for He knows what is ultimately best for us. Today’s Christian mindset states in essence that we already know God’s will and since we are anointed and powerful as God’s children we need only speak it into being or in some cases demand it, declare it so and it will be. Does this sound like humility and contentment?

The mindset that has infiltrated the Church and has taken such a toll on the thinking of believers was first introduced to a man called Napoleon Hill. (Please research internet sources) Napoleon Hill was visited by ‘Ascended Masters’; these masters were in fact demonic being that gave Hill the great secret to success which is encapsulated in this one saying; “that anything the human mind can believe the human mind can achieve.”(From his book ‘Grow Rich with Peace of Mind’) Presidents, preachers and men of renown have endorsed his many books even though throughout its pages you find an undeniable uncanny resemblance to occult practices and teaching.

How many of us have heard something similar to that taught to us right from the pulpit without knowing its demonic source. The mind was essentially given a power that could now be harnessed by man. A power to simply believe; if I can believe it to be… it will be. Who needs to wait on God; why intercede, why spend nights pleading or crying out in prayer when I can cut to the quick and speak it into existence by the power of my mind a power that the church has labelled faith. However, it is not faith; faith has an object it sets its eye on bigger than itself. Faith is at rest in God who shall supply all my needs. This so called faith is a thinly veiled demonic deception where God truly is not the focus or the source, the power of the mind is the source where our prayers can be answered, if we can only believe enough.

This metaphysical mind power is a makeover of demonic proportions, a stealth bomb wreaking devastating collateral damage in the church by moving us away from a dependant trust in an all sufficient God to an all sufficient me. This is a ploy of the enemy to embolden believers to, as Eve strike out on their own to reach out and take hold of a power and authority that will make them self sufficient with an ability to secure their petitions by the power of their own words. This is not faith based but the fruit of fear that suggest that if God is holding back good things from us then we had better secure them for ourselves.

The proponents of this ‘hyper faith’ have done well for themselves, it would appear the obvious emphasis seems to be very self serving with all the creature comforts one would certainly want to declare and possess. Which comes right back to us as number one; securing all the goodies and insuring health and prosperity and in no way putting us in a position where we have to depend solely on God’s will and design for our lives. Again the Gospel is not enough; it seems that when our human nature is given a chance to become independent of God by assuring that as weak human beings we seize the lofty prize we take it every time to our detriment and resulting consequences.

The cross has been set aside, because the cross binds us back to Christ, back to denying self, back to forfeiting our personal rights and esteeming others as more important than ourselves. This new found faith is a mask that tries to conceal a flesh that has not denied itself, a flesh that has not come under the harness of God not willing to be conformed to His death nor wanting to be a partaker of His sufferings. Theirs is the message that godliness is gain, and sadly it appears it is all about material gain, in this case the spirit man remains in a beggarly state.

The obvious next step as in Eve’s case is being as God. Some may think this is preposterous; who can be that deceived to think that any mortal could be a god. Take a look around the secular world and in the eastern mind religions and you may be surprised what you might find. We are in fact here at this juncture. The Shirley Mclaine’s and the Kenneth Copeland’s as well as the a myriad of other cults all making claim that they are or in the process of becoming gods through self realization looking deep within for that dormant divinity that needs to be awakened to take its place. Remember when you begin to stray away from scripture than anyone’s mystical revelation or experience moves up to fill the void of God’s word and the Bible takes a back seat.

Tragically here on this continent we have sought for signs miracles and power and we have allowed just about every wind of doctrine to blow through the church doors to our demise. We have tossed out the cross and the blood of Jesus as antiques no longer relevant in today’s Christian world view. We have been left with workshops and seminars on how to tap into the power but have forsaken the old path, the consecrated holy altars of an era that witnessed the Holy Spirit as it transformed individuals, swept cities and nations with convicting powers bringing men and women to their knees in repentance. Like Eve we have reached out to gain power and authority by our own hands and intellect and we have been left with neither.

The Gospel ‘is’ enough because it was birthed in the heart of God and is able to save to the uttermost and the gutter- most. It was enough for the early Church who forsook all to gain Christ. These same people were in time dragged into the coliseum to face wild beats and gladiators waiting to take their lives. It was enough for Paul and Silas whipped and beaten numerous times yet considered it an honor to suffer for Christ. Every generation of believers since the dawning of the Church has suffered persecution, adversity, trials and tribulation. They did not think it strange that suffering was part of their Christian faith, they in fact entered the Christian faith knowing full well what awaited believers yet they did not think their lives too dear a price in exchange for the unfathomable riches to be had in Christ alone.

Yes the Gospel is enough for the saint as God sanctifies and sets apart His man or woman conforming them into the image of Jesus through the fires of trials and testing He Himself personally engineers and orchestrates. Let us not grow weary in well doing, Christ likeness comes only by bearing crosses not by rebuking them or declaring that we are above them in no need to be tried or tested by God.

The Gospel is not enough when we refuse the road God calls us to walk down. To be a disciple we cannot dictate any other terms than those God calls us to. We need not fear for He goes with us , we can be assured that we walk with Him and He with us as we bear the cross that will conform and transform each one of us into His image.

In all reality we are not gods nor will we ever be, yet He has raised us up to be seated with Him in heavenly places in Christ (Ephesians 2:6). We have also been given exceeding and precious promises that we might become partakers of His divine nature.(Not our own)(2 Peter 1:4)

We are in good hands; we need not listen to the serpents beguiling whispers to ‘reach out’. We have been invited into the habitation of the Almighty, given every spiritual blessing, what more is there? Are we truly at rest and content in the place of God’s calling or is there ground where like Eve the enemy of our souls is still able to allure us by his deceptive craft to strike out on our own- take the forbidden thing for our own self serving personal fulfillment and attainment.