Gospel-Centered Wholesome Christian Living

Where is the gospel as we considered the ABCs of Wholesome (Practical) Christian Living?

• Accountability: God personally took accountability for us by sending His Son to die for our sins (1 Cor 15:3), though God could have treated us as our sins deserve (Ps 103:10).

• Beauty: For us to behold the beauty of God (Ps 27:4), Jesus was marred beyond human likeness (Isa 52:14).

• Boldness: Jesus is both our Lion King and slain Lamb (Rev 5:5-6), who boldly, without flinching, tasted death (Heb 2:17) for us, so that we, through him, might be as bold as a lion (Prov 28:1).

• Community: For us to enjoy a loving community (Ps 133:1), Jesus had to lose his eternal community with His Father on the Cross (Mt 27:46; Mk 15:34; Ps 22:1).

• Delight: To love and delight in us, God had to turn away from the Son He loves (Jn 3:16).

• Daily: "Daily" throughout eternity Jesus was in the bosom of the Father (Jn 1:18, NASB). But for three days in the grave Jesus was cut off from the land of the living (Isa 53:8), so that we may have the joy of fellowship with God daily (Ps 119:97; 1:2).
  

• Experience: For us to taste and see the goodness of God (Ps 34:8), Jesus had to be cut off from the land of the living (Isa 53:8), cut off from the goodness and love of his Father.

• Father: Jesus lost his Father so that we might be restored to our Everlasting Father.
  

• Friendship: On the cross Jesus lost his eternal friendship with God, so that we might no longer remain enemies but become friends of God (Jn 15:15), and friends with each other (Ps 133:1).
  

• Freedom: Jesus freely gave up his life for our sins, so that he, through the Spirit (2 Cor 3:17), might set us free (Gal 5:1).

• Forgetfulness: We can be self-forgetful (1 Cor 4:3-4), only because through Christ being cursed in our place for us (Gal 3:3), God "forgets" our sins (Ps 103:12).
  

• Gentleness: The Father was most brutal toward his Son so that He might be most gentle with us (Mt 11:29).
  

• Goal: Jesus' goal was to die in obedience to the Father's will, so that our goal may be to live (Phil 3:14; Jn 10:10b; 1 Cor 10:31).
  

Other themes to consider:

• C is for Confession (Prov 28:13; Jas 5:16).

• D is for Discipline (1 Cor 9:24-27).
  

• F is for Fear (Prov 29:25).

• G is for Gossip (Prov 16:28; 17:9; 18:18).