I hope you had a delightful Christmas weekend experiencing the peace of Christ in your

life, and we are back to work with a really important question from Josh in South Carolina.

Pastor John, in your book, God is the gospel you make this statement, quote, the gospel

is not a way to get people to heaven, it is a way to get people to God in quote, you

then close chapter three saying quote, if we do not see him and savor him as our greatest

fortune, we have not obeyed or believed the gospel, unquote.

Are you saying that those who acknowledge their need of Christ's propitiation to be justified

and stand righteous before God and yet fall short of God being the object of their affection

are not effectively justified by the gospel?

How would you respond to Josh?

Well, I am very, very thankful for this question because I have had others talking to me recently.

I'm eager to clarify this if I can.

I know that the way I often talk about the nature of saving faith troubles some very good

people who are faithful to the gospel.

For example, I say things like faith is being satisfied in all that God is for us in Jesus.

I say that all over the place in the book Future Grace, the most prominent place where I say it.

Now in the places where I have said things like that and I say them unrepentantly, I try

to give many supporting Bible foundations for that definition and we can't go into all those,

but let me just mention one because it's going to relate to the answer here.

Jesus said to them, John 6.35, I am the bread of life.

Whoever comes to me shall not hunger and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

So Jesus portrays himself as bread and by implication water because he refers to thirst.

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