The Gospel-"Behold your God!"

Praise God for the gift of Himself! I was just reading through one of John Piper's books, God is the Gospel and was awestruck. Check it out:

Why is the gospel, which has justification by faith at its heart, good news? Now this question is seldom asked, because being forgiven for our sins and being acquitted in court for capital crimes and being counted righteous before a holy God is so manifestly a happy situation that it seems impertinent to ask, why is it good news?

Every person should be asked the question, "Why is it good news to you that your sins are forgiven?" "Why is it good news to you that you stand righteous in the courtroom of the Judge of the universe?" The reason this must be asked is that there are seemingly biblical answers that totally ignore the gift of God Himself. A person may answer, "Being forgiven is good news because I don't want to go to hell." Or a person may answer, "Being forgiven is good news because a guilty conscience is a horrible thing, and I get great relief when I believe my sins are forgiven." Or a person may answer, " I want to go to heaven." But then we must ask why they want to go to heaven. They might answer, "Because the alternative is painful." Or "because my deceased wife is there." Or "because there will be a new heaven and a new earth where justice and beauty will finally be everywhere."

...all that is true. So what's wrong with those answers? What's wrong with them is that they do not treat God as the final and highest good of the gospel. These gifts are precious. But they are not God. And they are not the gospel if God himself is not cherished as the supreme gift of the gospel. Justification is not an end in itself. Neither is the forgiveness of sins or the imputation of righteousness. Neither is escape from hell or entrance into heaven or freedom from disease or liberation from bondage or eternal life or justice or mercy or the beauties of a painfree world. None of these facets of the gospel-diamond is the chief good or highest goal of the gospel. Only one thing is: seeing and savoring God himself, being changed into the image of his Son so that more and more we delight in and display God's infinite beauty.

Phew! Great stuff huh? It is too easy to get bogged down with the guilt and shame of past sin, or to shift one's focus from the eternal to the temporal. And even to "borrow worry from tomorrow" as one of my great friends usually puts it. This is where the concept that "hard is good" comes into place. The flesh will do everything it can to draw us away from God's promises, and will hinder us from walking in the Spirit. But let us do the hard work of thinking on what is true: "I do not condemn you, either" (John 8:11).

No condemnation now I dread. Jesus and all in Him is mine. Alive in Him, my living head; and clothed in righteousness divine. Bold I approach the eternal throne, and claim the crown of Christ my own. AMAZING LOVE! HOW CAN IT BE? THAT THOU MY GOD SHOULDST DIE FOR ME!