How to Preach the Gospel to Yourself

By Ben Spalink

He didn’t realize it was happening. It had creeped into his soul without notice. He felt sluggish, grumpy, and at certain vulnerable parts of the day beset by hopelessness and fear. Accusations overwhelmed him, memories of past failures and insecurities about various things. He wondered whether God would accept him at the judgment day and secretly doubted his salvation. This fear sapped him of vitality and felt like a dark cloud over his day. 

The famous hymn “Come Thou Fount” contains these words: “Prone to wander, Lord I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love.”  Robert Robinson, the author of the words, knew this was true because of scripture and his own experience. He knew he needed God to reign in his wandering heart. Even as Christians, one reality of our broken condition is our tendency to drift. The key is to identify when this is happening and to take immediate steps to remedy the situation. 

As in the fictional example above, we see a person with a disturbed conscience, and it is affecting his peace and his joy. He has no energy. The lies of doubt masterfully convince him of their legitimacy.  This can happen to anyone. Christ promises peace and love, but when we drift like this, God’s gifts cease to encourage us. Christ promises salvation, but we doubt our worthiness. We convince ourselves that God’s grace doesn't apply to us or that we’re not worthy of it.  It can be very difficult to extricate oneself from this malaise because we often don’t realize it is happening. You can’t fix what is happening unless you realize: “I’m not living in the gospel. Something is off and I need to get back to Jesus.”

We drift away from the gospel when anything other than Jesus takes the primary place of awe and affection in our hearts. When we make something like beauty, career or reputation our heart’s chief treasure, we may be motivated for a time, but our commitments to these gods will take over our lives and leave us feeling depleted and worthless.  How much success is enough? How much beauty is lasting? How much can I really worry about what everyone thinks of me?  False gods cannot provide real lasting righteousness, so our hearts will eventually fall into doubt, insecurity and exhaustion. If we’re not resting in Christ, we will be restless. We can also tell we’ve wandered from the gospel when we begin to feel superior or inferior to others.  To feel superior is to forget you’re saved by grace, while to feel inferior is to forget God’s love and forgiveness which should drive away thoughts of insufficiency.  

Because of gospel drift, the tendency of our hearts is to wander away from the gospel. We need to not only identify when this is happening but also know the path back. You can’t wait to hear the sermon on Sunday - you need to learn how to preach the Gospel to yourself and come back to Jesus immediately.  Thankfully, it’s not hard. The path to returning from wandering is the same path as when you first became a Christian - repentance and faith. Repentance and faith are not just for new Christians - they are the everyday path for believers for all of life and they are the most effective tools for staying rooted in the Gospel. 

I John 4:18 is extremely helpful to remember: “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” Fear and love shouldn’t co-exist. If you have fear, this should be an alarm bell that you’ve bought into a non-gospel type of thinking. Repentance is fundamentally about a conversion (or re-conversion) of the mind.  Fear, we are told, has to do with punishment. The basis of fear is the belief that God is angry with us, that we have fallen short in some way, and that as a result, God will punish us. Fear is a byproduct of too low a view of God, believing he will fall short and let us die and that we will have deserved it. Let me be clear - no thought process could be further from the truth of the gospel.  Repentance starts with identifying the false narratives that we’ve embraced that are filling us with fear and sapping our joy in Christ.  The daily conversion is a return to the truths of scripture regarding the love, generosity, kindness, forgiveness and patience of God. 

To preach the Gospel to yourself, it is necessary that you become an expert in knowing how the truths of scripture directly contradict and override the tendencies of your wandering heart. The wandering heart slinks off into the corners of unworthiness, condemnation, accusation and insecurity. The Gospel contradicts these false beliefs with such truths as:

“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” Romans 8:37

“Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation…” Colossians 1:22

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16

“This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” Romans 3:22-24

“You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord, is the Rock eternal. Isaiah 26:3-4

“He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” Psalm 103:10-12

Repentance is from the Greek metanoia, meaning to change your thinking. Repentance is one side of the coin. The flip side is faith. Faith is always a bit of a risk.  Faith is stepping out in trust, courageously acting as if the reality of God and his love is indeed viable. In the Christian life, there is an inevitable gap between hoping and knowing. This is where faith comes in - it bridges that gap between heaven and earth. When it comes to addressing our wandering hearts, the leap of faith is having the courage to let go of self-condemnation, self-hatred, self-doubt, insecurity and feelings of worthlessness and to actually believe in faith that God has made me worthy, God has saved me, my sins are not counted against me, that my salvation is guaranteed and to leave the shame of the past behind. As strange as it sounds, leaving insecurity and shame is a risk. It is daring to believe that the gospel is true, that God really does love us as much as the Bible says and to live accordingly. 

The prodigal son in Luke 15 must have marveled at the reception he received upon returning home to his gracious father. After having felt so ashamed and unworthy, one can only imagine his relief that instead of receiving rebuke, he received grace. But imagine how he felt the next week. Or the week after. Might the old insecurities have crept back in? Might he have begun to wonder whether his father was serious, whether all these blessings were real or imagined? If he remembered his former sin, squandering his father’s wealth with prostitutes, he may have slipped into despair and self-condemnation. One must imagine, then, how the Father would respond if he saw the faraway guilty look in his son’s eyes. The Father would lovingly embrace him again and say, “All is forgiven. I am not resentful. Forget the past. You’re mine and you’re here to stay.  Nothing can change my love for you.” The Father would remind the son of the good news with words affirming the truth of his love.

You need to preach the Gospel to yourself every day.  When fear, anxiety or insecurity creep in, identify it immediately and surrender yourself to Jesus afresh. When doubt or self-condemnation beset you, when the enemy attacks you with constant accusations and reminders of your mistakes, use the shield of faith and rebuke those thoughts. It’s not hard, but it does take courage. By preaching the gospel to yourself, you will stay closer to Jesus, you will avoid unnecessarily long seasons of despair, and you can better maintain your vitality in serving Christ.  May you soak up every ounce of delight in knowing and believing the gospel of your salvation.  You were set free in Christ. Do not again allow yourself to be burdened by a yoke of slavery, one that steals your joy and your peace.  Have the courage to really truly believe that the promises of God are true and that they are meant for you.