Do you cherish your life more than you do testifying to the gospel of grace? We probably cherish our jobs more, our money more, our reputation more, our status in the community more. I suspect we often make the grand claim that we would die for the sake of the gospel but then refuse even to walk across the room to share it with a co-worker or across the driveway at home to share it with a neighbor. I suggest that if we do not treasure or place preeminent value on the gospel above even our own lives it can only be because we don’t really know what the gospel is. 

Many have reached a saturation point when it comes to the notion of gospel centrality. “Enough already,” they cry, with more than a little exasperation. I understand this reaction. We who identify as evangelicals are good at taking what is otherwise a fully biblical term or concept and beating it into the ground or pounding it into the heads of our people. So, yes, it’s possible for us to grow justifiably weary of certain terminology.

After years of watching “gospel-centered” be used as an adjective to describe everything from children’s ministry to a Wednesday night pot-luck dinner to global missions, I pray that we not lose sight of how indescribably important the gospel actually is. So I thought it might be helpful if we simply let Scripture address the matter. This post, therefore, is designed for those of you who, in your understandable frustration with what has often become a mindless and repetitive use of the language of gospel-centrality, are on the verge of deleting it altogether from your vocabulary.

Read and rejoice!

Mark 8:35 – “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.”

The gospel is worth the sacrifice of our lives! And in such sacrifice there is found true life.

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