Fred Malone's Questions for Understanding and Application of the Gospel

These are Fred Malone's questions to better help us both understand and apply the gospel, I have taken them from Phil Newton's book Elders in Congregational Life, where Newton quotes him.

1) How does Christ's life and redeeming work help you to live as a husband, a wife, a parent, a child, a church member?

2) What do you think is God's great goal for your life?

3) What does heaven mean to you today?

4) What does Christ think and feel about you when you sin?

5) Do you think God enjoys you?

The answers to these questions that each of us gives will reveal a great deal about how we understand and live out the gospel. Many of us confess justification by faith alone, but live as though the security of our salvation rests on our good works or purity. It does not. God is not less accessible, less our savior, or more hateful towards us when we sin. Because of Christ, God looks on us and sees the righteousness of His Son. This has come home to most clearly in the two chapters on "legalism" and "Condemnation" in C.J. Mahaney's book The Cross Centered Life, and is most clearly laid out in the letter to the Galatians. Galatians is the great book on justification by faith alone, in which Paul defends salvation by grace through faith in the work and person of Christ alone. Read it often to refresh yourself on the true gospel and evaluate your life frequently with the questions above. What we say we beleive about the gospel is revealed to be true, or not, in the way we live.