To proclaim and clarify his gospel truth, and challenge other things preached, Jesus repeats the following often:
'YOU HAVE HEARD IT SAID' -- 'BUT I SAY UNTO YOU.'
See the difference between gospel truth and wrong beliefs, false assumptions, half-truths, and incorrect conclusions.
YOU BE THE JUDGE!
CAN THE GOSPEL REALLY BE THIS GOOD?
If you truly understand the wonderful things the gospel says, and how God blesses us out of our minds, I can see why folks have a hard time believing it. It really does seem too good to be true. The truth is the gospel is so good it can only be true!
The human mind could never invent the gospel. Only a God of love, grace, and peace can invent the gospel.
Excerpt:
God Writes Old Testament Law On Our Hearts
You Have Heard It Preached:
minds, not just on tablets of stone. He then gives us his gospel
and the Holy Spirit to help us keep his law” (Heb 10:16).
But the Truth of the Gospel Is:
Proverbs says, “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” So does God really mean for us to constantly think about his law, so it becomes one with us, and so we depend on him to help us keep it? NO! In the New gospel, the law is said to be ‘the ministry of condemnation and death’ (II Cor 3:6-7). Does God want us living condemned and guilty lives? NO! “In Christ there is NO condemnation” (Rom 8:1).
Paul says apart from the law sin is dead (Rom 7:8). He says the law is what causes sin in us (I Cor 15:56) Sin occurs when we live in the flesh, but when we live in the Spirit — the Holy Spirit overpowers our sinful natures (Rom 7:5). Yes, we still sin, but we’re delivered from the power of sin in the law because it is dead. We live in God’s Spirit (Rom 7:6). We must be dead to the law in order to minister unto God (Gal 2:19).
Jesus came to fulfill his Father’s commands, and asks us to simply keep his commands. John says they are not grievous or burdensome, like the Old law was. He came to give us a new command (John 13:34). Jesus brought a change in the law (Heb 7:12, 16-19), because it was ‘a carnal command.’ We are told the law consists of : (1) believing in Jesus and his gospel (the first thing he ever spoke about (Mark 1:14-15) and (2) loving others (I John 3:21, John 3:36, Mark 1:15). Jesus says, “Love others AS I have loved you.” Love doesn’t begin with us, but with God. I call it ‘used love.’
We use God’s love and then just give it away. There are three parts to this: (1) receiving it, (2) relegating it to ourselves and our own blessing, and (3) releasing God’s love to others. The gospel empowers us in all of life. It is the power of God in us and through us (Rom 1:16-17). It motivates us to live right, and it also enables us to live in all the blessings of God, which includes loving others. The gospel is what enables us to live better by accident than we ever could on purpose in ourselves.
