It is time to begin taking the gospel of the kingdom of God outside of the four walls of the church. There is a move of God happening in the spirit right now. Since mid-April 2026, I have felt something inside of me shift to being bolder about sharing my faith. However, when I refer to my faith, I am not just talking about the fact that I believe Jesus is the son of God and that he was raised from the dead. I am referring to the core principles of what I believe and who I am.
Let me ask you a question – what is the gospel? Pause. Take a moment to think about it and even write down what you believe. If you are going to share the gospel, then you need to know what you believe. After all, how can you share your faith if you don’t know what it is you have faith in?
OK. Now that you have defined what you believe the gospel is, let’s go to the word.
Matthew 4:23 (KJV)
And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.
The above scripture states that Jesus preached the gospel of the kingdom. What exactly was it that he preached? I have heard people over and over state that the gospel is that Jesus Christ died on the cross to save me from my sins so that I could have a home in heaven. If I try to reconcile that statement to the passage above, I run into some questions.
First, if the gospel is that Jesus died on the cross for my sins, does that mean Jesus was preaching about himself? Was he telling people that he was going to die on a cross for them and that by doing so he would save them from their sins? That doesn’t sound right. First, if Jesus was preaching about his death on the cross, then why doesn’t the scripture just say that is what he told people? There are multiple places throughout the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) where Jesus preached the gospel. You would think that in at least one of these places where it talked about his preaching it would have mentioned his death on the cross, right? Second, even Jesus’ own disciples or the people on the road to Emmaus did not believe that Jesus was going to have to suffer such things. See Matthew 16:21-23 and Luke 24:19-26. This tells me that the gospel Jesus was preaching had nothing to do with his suffering on the cross.
Let’s look at the next part of Matthew 4:23 to see what Jesus did after preaching the gospel – and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.
So, Jesus preached the gospel and then after preaching the gospel he healed people. If we reconcile this back to the original statement of the gospel, then this would correlate to saving me from my sins so that I could have a home in heaven. But I do not see how being healed of sicknesses and diseases compares to having a home in heaven. One is happening now in this life, and the other is a promise after death. If we look at Jesus’ instruction to his disciples after his resurrection, it will give us a clearer picture of what the gospel is:
Mark 16:15-18 (KJV)
15 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. 16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. 17 And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; 18 They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.
In the verse above, Jesus instructed his disciples to go into all the world and preach the gospel. Then, he told them that signs would follow their preaching of the gospel. There are multiple listed, but I only bolded the last one: they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. This agrees with what Jesus did after he preached the gospel – he healed the sick. So, what exactly is the gospel, and what is the faith that we should be proclaiming to people?
The gospel is the reconciliation of God and man. Sin has separated us from God, and the gospel is the promise that God made to reconcile us back to him. Part of this reconciliation is to heal our body of disease. Jesus is the means by which God brought his promise to pass. Jesus dying on the cross is not the gospel and saving us from our sins is not the gospel. The gospel is that God made a promise to save us from our sins, and by doing so he will heal our bodies, bring peace to our minds, and redeem us from our sinful nature by transforming us into a new creature. Jesus made all of this possible, but we must understand what the gospel is and the promise that follows.
The gospel IS NOT that Jesus died on a cross to save us from our sins so that we could have a home in heaven.
The gospel IS that through Jesus God has made a way to be reconciled back to God, and as a sign of this promise he will forgive our sins, heal our bodies, bring peace to our minds, and transform us into new creatures.
Jesus is just the means in which God established the New Testament (or Covenant) with man, and in this covenant he will transform our sinful nature into a divine nature by writing his laws and commandments on our heart (Hebrews 8:10).
So, bringing this full circle, let’s go back to how I started this article – I am becoming bolder in sharing my faith. What does this mean? For me, this means I am becoming more vocal about telling people about the promises of the gospel – healing for their bodies, peace for their minds, and the forgiveness of sins. This is my faith. This is what I believe. Throughout my walk with God, he has performed all three in my life and therefore I know all three are true. He has healed my body, he has given me peace and delivered my mind from evil, and he has forgiven me of my sins and trespasses against him. What is the gospel to you, and how has God demonstrated the promises of the gospel in your life? That is YOUR faith, and that is where the power of the gospel lies.
Thank you for taking the time to read this article, and may God bless you for your faithfulness to his word.