As Christians we are called to embrace the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We tend to forget what the message of the Gospel is all about. It is more than not going to hell. It is all about redemption in the context of a relationship with God.
When we understand the Gospel in these terms, we will, in turn, grasp what God is doing and revealing in his Word, and what all of history is moving towards. Furthermore, we will better understand the importance of growing in relationship with God, in letting ourselves be transformed by the renewal of our mind (Romans 12:2), as we await that glorious day when we are all called to eternal life with God.
In his recent discourse to members of the Association of the Spiritual Family of St Charles de Foucauld, Pope Francis pointed out that “as a Church, we need to return to the essentials in order to not get lost in so many secondary matters, at the risk of losing sight of the simple purity of the Gospel”.
Throughout the history of Christianity, it would seem Jesus’s teaching has had little impact, except among people who surrendered to great love and great suffering. Could this be the real core of the Gospel?
Franciscan priest Richard Rohr works endlessly to reawaken Christians to the radical and transformative message of Jesus. It’s a message that is often distorted by culture. In his own words, “our religion is not working well: suffering, fear, violence, injustice, greed and meaninglessness still abound. This is not even close to the reign of God that Jesus taught.”
Many Christians are not highly transformed people; instead, they tend to reflect their own culture more than they operate as any kind of leaven within it. Most Christians have not been taught how to plug into the “mind of Christ”; thus, they often reflect the common mind of power, greed, and war instead. The dualistic mind reads reality in simple binaries – good and bad, right and wrong – and thinks itself smart because it chooses one side.
This is getting us nowhere. We need practice-based religion that teaches us to connect with the Infinite in ways that change us from our finite perspectives. We must rediscover what St Francis of Assisi called the “marrow of the Gospel”. It is time to rebuild from the bottom up. If the foundation is not solid and sure, everything we try to build on it is weak and ineffective. How is our relationship with God today? Are we walking close with him? Are we growing in Christ, moving forward, making progress? Or have we plateaued or even stepped backwards in our Christian walk.
If the foundation is not solid and sure, everything we try to build on it is weak and ineffective
God created us to have a relationship with him. And unless we are growing in that relationship, we are missing out on the best that God has for us. We are missing out on God’s daily love and guidance, his peace and assurance in our life. We are missing out on the main reason why we are here. If we have walked away from God in our life in any way, if we have backslid to the extent of running on empty, it is time to come home to God.