This article is Part 1 in a 4-part series on Gospel Awareness. In this series, we’ll look at what it is (Part 1), why we need it (Part 2), how to get it (Part 3), and what to do once we have it (Part 4).

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At first glance, the term “awareness” seems to strike a pop-culture cord. It’s almost buzz-worthy, and perhaps for good reason. There are plenty of things to be aware of in today’s world. Many of them are things that I should be more aware of than I am. Like the amount of calories I consume in one day, or the number of times I pick up my phone in an hour to check for messages. But then there are other, vastly more complicated issues to contemplate. Like how to respond to the racism, sex-trafficking, and increased politicalization nearly everywhere around us.

When I think of awareness, I think of coming to the realization about something that you didn’t know before. Merriam-Webster defines awareness as “knowledge and understanding that something is happening or exists.” A few months ago, I had a water-heater awareness experience, when it started leaking and had to be replaced. Part of the awareness was understanding that I needed to drain the water heater every year to remove as much sediment build-up as possible from the bottom of the tank. In my situation, it is even more important due to the hard water in our house. I had no idea this even needed to be on my radar, but now I am aware.

But what about the gospel?
Isn’t that something we’re already aware of as Christians?
Why would we even be talking about gospel awareness?
Is it just the title of this blog?

What is Gospel Awareness?

Before we can talk about why we need gospel awareness or how we get it, we need to define what we mean by the term. We need to talk about what it is. This is a working definition, because, to my knowledge, this term doesn’t exist in theological textbooks, and you won’t find it in the dictionary. At least not in the ones I looked at. Here we are talking about a specific kind of awareness.

Gospel awareness is my way of referring to the realization that the gospel has implications for all of my life, in ordinary everyday situations, and not just for compartments of my life on certain days with certain people. Or, more succinctly, gospel awareness is realizing how the gospel has changed every aspect of my life and how my heart is in constant need of reorientation as it’s exposed to the truth of the gospel.

That explanation might sound a bit anti-climactic, and to some extent it is. Because I think most Christians would confessionally agree with this idea. We know that the gospel is for all of life, not just Sundays. We know our hearts need the truth of the gospel. But what I will argue in this series is that we need gospel awareness because there is a gap between our confessional belief and our functional belief. We know this truth confessionally, but functionally we relegate the gospel only to how we become Christians, rather than seeing the gospel as the daily fuel and framework for how we live as Christians for the rest of our lives.

To be sure, as long as we are in this flesh and on planet earth, we will always have a gap between what we confess we believe and what we actually, functionally believe. But growing in our understanding of the gospel, being sanctified by the Holy Spirit, will result in that gap growing ever smaller. The fruit of the Spirit’s sanctification in our lives is to be more consistently living out what we say we believe.

The realization that this confessional-functional gap needs to close is where the awareness comes in to play. What actually closes that gap is our ever-deepening understanding of the gospel. Gospel awareness, then, is the understanding that through belief in the gospel, God makes me a Christian (justification), grows me as a Christian (sanctification), and ensures I will stay a Christian (glorification). “And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified” (Romans 8:30).

As a side note, the phrase “gospel awareness” does not appear anywhere in Scripture, so it might seem like I’m adding something in, but that is certainly not my intention. I am using this phrase in a similar way to how we use the words Trinity or discipleship, neither of which appear in the Bible. However, both of these terms help us wrap our minds around what Scripture says and point us to realities about God and ourselves that are otherwise hard to summarize.

Gospel awareness is a short-hand way of saying we actively recognize the importance and implications of the gospel for everyday life.

Aren’t we already aware of the Gospel?

The gospel seems simple enough. Paul explains the core of the gospel in 1 Corinthians. He says “for I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). If you’r e a Christian, then you believe this gospel. You realize that you’re a sinner, that you need a Savior, and that Jesus is that Savior. Through his death, burial, and resurrection, he purchased redemption for his people. This is the core of the gospel.

So, yes, if we’re Christians, we’re aware of this gospel, as belief in the gospel is necessary for salvation. But what I have discovered is that as the Spirit works in our hearts, and the seed of the gospel grows deeper roots, the initial acceptance of the gospel gives way to a much deeper understanding of how the gospel transforms us at the soul level. What happens in conversion is nothing less than a supernatural heart transplant; a new birth. This is a life-altering transformation. This rocks our world. But we don’t really realize how much it rocks our world until we start to see all of life with gospel lenses. The gospel becomes the filter through which we view everything else. The gospel affects work, rest, recreation, marriage, sex, parenting, relationships, friendships, conflict, hobbies, money, and every other part of life. In that sense, we aren’t aware of the gospel until we begin to see all of life with gospel lenses.

Gospel awareness is realizing the need for our hearts to be continually reoriented back to who God is and what he has done for us through Jesus. It is realizing that this is how we grow. How we begin in the Christian life–repentance and faith–is how we continue in the Christian life. As we begin to see how every area of our life is affected by the gospel, we become aware of the gospel at a much deeper soul level.

Gospel awareness doesn’t negate the simplicity of the gospel, nor does it complicate the need for child-like faith in the message of the cross. But it does show the evidence that the gospel has taken root and the fruit of that gospel root is repentance and faith in every area of life, continually bringing all of life under the lordship of Christ. In my own life, I didn’t come to this awareness until I was 31. That was almost 7 years ago. I am still on this journey of understanding the depth of the gospel for all of life, and I look forward to how God will work in my heart as I continue down this pathway.

It’s why I started this blog.
It’s why I titled it Gospel Awareness.
I want to document this journey, analyze the process, and invite others along with me to experience this insatiable appetite for understanding the character of God as revealed in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Now that we have a better understanding of what gospel awareness actually is, in part 2 of this series we’ll tackle the question of why it is so important for us to have gospel awareness.