What’s been taken out of the white-flour gospel? It says nothing whatsoever about becoming a new person in Christ.

The nourishment that God put in has been taken out, and the result is that many Christians have missed out on the substance that will build up their spiritual lives. To be a Christian is to be in Jesus Christ. When you are “in Christ,” it is not just that your past is forgiven and your future secure. It is that you become a new person in Christ. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Cor. 5:17).

Here’s the issue: Many Christians have never really understood what it is to be a new person in Christ. The Bible expresses this in different ways.

• “You must be born again” (John 3:7).
• “He saved us… by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5).
• “[God] made us alive together with Christ” (Eph. 2:5).

We have been examining our new identity in Christ and seeking to put back into our understanding of the gospel what has too often been taken out. “Because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30).

New life, new power, new identity. That’s the whole grain of the gospel!

In what ways do you sense that the true substance of the gospel has been missing from your life?