The Gospel Explained by Jesus

After a long time of struggling to read and understand the Bible when I read it in entirety for the first time and being uncomfortable with so many differences between all the denominations, I decided to make this with quotes from the four gospels only (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) and see what Jesus had to say about Salvation. You can then use it as a lens to understand the rest of the Bible. Here is my attempt to interpret what Jesus said! I'm not perfect, and I don't want to pretend that I have everything figured out. Please comment or reach out about your thoughts! Above all I just want to help you find peace and your purpose.

Jesus has offered us a path to be in fellowship with God again, our salvation. He has saved us from all our sins by being the ultimate sacrifice before God and redeemed us. Our salvation has been offered to us by the grace and mercy of Jesus, but that salvation is a narrow and difficult path to enter the kingdom of heaven. “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my father in heaven” (Matthew 7:21). The things we must do are not physical works of this world, but they must be done in the heart and cannot be faked.

1.      (UP) Believe in Jesus (John 3:16) and have complete faith in him as the Son of God. We must love the Lord (Matthew 22:36-40) and realize that we are poor in spirit or spiritually bankrupt without him (Matthew 5:3). Jesus says that if we truly love and know him, we will keep his commands (John 14:15-18). The one who loves Jesus will be loved by the Father and Jesus will reveal himself to him (John 14:21). We must love the Lord more than anything else in this world and deny ourselves, or we will not be worthy of Jesus (Matthew 7:24, 10:37-39, and 16:24-28)

2.      (DOWN) We must repent of our sins (Matthew 4:17, Mark 1:15, Luke 24:47) and then be baptized in the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will empower us to be a light in the world to shine the gospel of Jesus and gives us the power to change our hearts so that we can do the will of the Father. However, we need to forgive others for their offenses, or our Father will not forgive us for ours (Matthew 6:14-15).

3.      (IN) We must receive the word of God with a open, pure, and humble heart and produce fruit like a seed that falls in good soil, for a seed that falls on shallow soil can lead to belief for a while with joy but fall away in times of testing or be choked by the worries of this world. (parable of the Sower, Luke 8:15). This requires that we hunger and thirst for righteousness (Matthew 5:6). “For I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never get into the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:20)   

4.      (OUT) We must love everyone in this world, including our enemies, and spread the name of Jesus before others openly and without denial or he will deny us before the Father in heaven (Matthew 10:32-33). We do this because we want to pass the gospel along to others, and we want them to share in the everlasting peace and love that we received from Jesus. When we are interacting with others, we need to do so out of love and not judge them. “For you will be judged by the same standard that you judge others, and you will be measured by the same measure you use.” (Matthew 7:2)  

We must continue to have faith every day and choose to stay on the narrow path that Jesus has described. “How narrow is the gate and difficult the road that leads to life, and few find it.” (Matthew 7:14). If we stay on the narrow path, we will stay connected to the Holy Spirit and receive the greatest blessings imaginable for our whole lives by being connected with the kingdom of God on earth, it is not just found after death! We can remain with Jesus for a time but fall away (Luke 8:13, John 15:6 and 10, Matthew 24:13, Luke 21:19). We do not fall away from sin because we have already been forgiven for all of them if we forgive others. None of us are perfect and will inevitably sin, but followers of Jesus strive not to sin, while others openly practice it and even celebrate it. Instead, we can fall away by losing faith, belief, and love in Jesus; by failing to love others, refusing to forgive, judging others, choosing to practice sin without remorse, placing ourselves or worldly things above Jesus, and by denying Him before others.

We can have faith in the things that Jesus said and use them like a lens to properly understand the rest of the bible as man’s interactions with God, with the Old Testament being a unified story that leads to him, and the rest of the New Testament, after the first four books, being man’s attempt to follow Jesus. Jesus did not come to abolish the law, but fulfill it, and not one stoke or letter will pass away from the law until all things are accomplished (Matthew 5:17-18).

I know that this can feel like a lot, but the key to all of it is love! Everything that Jesus told us can be traced back to love. The transformation of the heart required to fulfill all these commands of Jesus likely won’t happen all at once. You, like many others, will place God as the Lord of your life, repent of your sins, and be baptized! You will instantly be cleansed by the Holy Spirit and feel its presence in your body, and it will provide you with more love, peace, and purpose than anything you could comprehend! We then are given the chance to walk down this narrow and difficult path that requires for use to love others and boldly spread the gospel with the help of the Holy Spirit!