God can bless you with children, but having children isn’t a part of the Gospel message. Some saints cannot conceive, some do not desire children, and others had to bury their children.

God can bless you with a good job, but having a good job isn’t a part of the Gospel message. Some saints do not have a good job and others do not have a job at all.

God can bless you with a spouse and a good marriage, but having a spouse and a good marriage aren’t a part of the Gospel message. Some saints are single, some do not desire marriage, and others do not have a good marriage.

God can bless you with wealth, but having wealth is not a part of the Gospel message. Many saints are not wealthy, some do not desire wealth, and others have lost their wealth for the sake of Christ due to persecution.

God can bless us with many things in this world, but these things are not the Gospel message.

When we turn temporal blessings into the Gospel message, we are adding onto Christ’s finished work on the Cross and changing the Gospel message which makes it “no good news at all” (Galatians 1). Scripture firmly forbids this.

There is a danger in turning temporal blessings into the Gospel message:

1) It creates a false standard of “salvation” or “blessedness” that many saints will not measure up to because they do not have the temporal blessings that were added onto Christ’s finished work on the Cross. This leads saints who adhere to this false standard of “salvation” or “blessedness” to unrighteously judge other saints who do not have these temporal blessings as “unsaved” “lacking faith to claim the promises of God” “less spiritual” or “in sin or disobedience.”

2) It leads saints to be puffed up against one another and think that they are spiritually-superior or “more favored by God” than saints who do not have these temporal blessings.

3) It draws the focus away from Christ and places it on temporal things, which leads to covetousness and idolatry.

4) Most tragic of all, it empties the Cross of Christ of its power by adding onto Christ’s finished work on the Cross which dilutes the pure unadulterated Gospel message. The Gospel that Jesus and the apostles preached is to be proclaimed in its PURE UNADULTERATED FORM, not modified to suit our temporal desires and circumstances.

Temporal blessings can change because they are not immutable/unchanging — only God is immutable/unchanging. Children can change. Your spouse can change. Your marriage can change. Your job, career, or employment status can change. Your financial status can change. But one thing that will never change is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ which is the Gospel message.

It is through Christ’s finished work on the Cross that we are saved, reconciled with God, made right with God, receive the Holy Spirit, set-apart and anointed, made complete through our union with Jesus, blessed, and pass from death to eternal life. Notice that every blessing of the Gospel is hidden in Christ in Heaven. This is why the Scripture says “Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God.” (Colossians 3:1-3)

I thank God for the blessings He has given me, because I know that it is only by His mercy and grace that I receive anything. Being justified before God and knowing that the Creator is a gracious and merciful God who personally entered into His own creation to demonstrate His love by paying the price for OUR SINS so that we can be saved, is the best thing to ever happen to me. There is no greater revelation that I can receive, and there is no greater blessing than that. I have experienced the abundant life that Jesus spoke of in John 10. I have seen and felt His goodness. Even when everything in my life is going wrong, the Holy Spirit within me rejoices in the Son of God, and it is there that I find my contentment — not in the temporal blessings.

Temporal blessings have their place, but they should never sit in the place of Christ and the Gospel on the throne of your heart.

If your salvation is based on a false ‘gospel’ of Jesus+temporal things, your faith can be shaken because temporal things change. But if your salvation is based on the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ — your faith is rooted by a steadfast anchor and an immovable rock. For Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He does not change, and His redemptive work on the Cross does not change. “It is finished.”

May our faith rest in Christ alone and His finished work on the Cross, and not in temporal blessings that are not eternal and are subject to change.

‪#‎JesusIsTheGospel‬ ‪#‎NotTemporalThings‬ ‪#‎DontAddOntoTheCross‬