Editor's note: This is an introduction to pastor Don Watson's new monthly column called "Grasping the Gospel"—a contemporary and candid exploration into the heart and character of Jesus Christ.

By Don Watson

The word, "nice" has lost most of it's...niceness down through the years. . . . 

"So what do you think of your new boss?"

"Oh, He's nice, I guess." 

See what I mean?  I still don't really know much about your boss.  That's nice has become the blandest and broadest of statements.  It may mean he's not mean, he's nice, not all that great – just ok.  Or you could look at your friend, Jeremy's fabulous new customized truck and say "NIIIIIICE!"  Which probably means something's really "sahhhweeeeet!"  But you get my point.  It has become so diluted that it can mean absolutely nothing or pretty much everything.  But that's not always been true.  Years ago, when a mason would fit two stones together so that they were pretty much a perfect fit, it was "nice."  It meant precise, exacting in requirements or standards. (Miriam Webster)  There was no doubt what nice meant, way back then. 

The word gospel has experienced somewhat the same dilution.   Most of us know it means, "good news." However, like "nice" that may mean really something to some and pretty much nothing to others.  For instance, we all know that anything about Jesus is, of course, good news.  So some people use the word gospel to refer to the whole story about Jesus recorded in the first four books of the New Testament –The Gospel according to Matthew, the Gospel according to Mark, etc. In fact, I guess the whole Bible is supposed to be good news.  So nobody's really wrong here. But unless we understand the radical thing that Jesus did, and how that has impacted every man, woman, and child on the planet, "gospel" is just a Post-it Note stuck on a story.  It's a title–it's not necessarily good news.

The good news, the gospel, is about who God is.  It's the good news about a person, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who IS God, just like the Father, and He comes down to show us God, and what He showed us is really good news!  I mean, it's radical, awesome good.  Like nobody we've ever known. But a lot of us haven't "got it" yet.  Our god burns people forever, gets vindictive and angry like us, he's vengeful - gets even like we get even.  The love of our god is extremely conditional.  I love you IF:  If you believe, repent, confess, accept me as your savior, obey, become baptized, witness, forgive the husband who beat you and violated your children...he's a god of rules - an egotistical god who's got to have it His way or the highway.  He resembles a mafia boss who says, "Antonio, don't take this personal.  I love ya', but ya broke the rules, so I gotta take ya out."  He's a god who predestines some people to life and some to hell, regardless of their own personal desires in the matter - it is predetermined.  Our god, through his church, removes his acceptance of us, via membership, when we have a different opinion about some teaching in the Bible or we make some mistake.  We have a god of force–someone who motivates with fear, manipulation and coercion instead of love–a love based on relationship that changes people from the inside.  We have a god who condemns sinners and loves Pharisees, righteous people, important people.  According to the Barna Group, Christians are perceived by non-Christians to be hypocritical, judgmental, and against homosexuals.  Today, we, the "righteous," flock around our god and the "unrighteous" will have nothing to do with church, while it was the worst of sinners who flocked around Jesus and the church leaders would have nothing to do with Him.  Maybe it's not the same god. 

Today in the Adventist Church we've got too many dying churches and dead people.  We have little idea what it means to be passionately and intimately engaged and connected to God.  We've made the gospel about church, schools, hospitals, doctrines, meetings, policies and Adventism instead of Jesus. We're bored because we've got no hero who has truly saved us, and we're nobody's hero because information and great institutions can't save and for years that's all we've had.  We've got no overwhelming, unspeakable gratitude like the Demoniac Jesus healed, because we have no overwhelming, unspeakable sense of forgiveness.  We cannot believe, we will not believe, that we are the Demoniac.  Consequently there is no deliverance, no power, and there is no good news. 

"Grasping the Gospel" will be a monthly, scriptural exploration of how radically loving, accepting, and forgiving Jesus really is. I've discovered that when I approach Jesus hungry and thirsty, with my defenses surrendered, begging the Holy Spirit to teach me, it is the kind of soil in which God has permission to plant the gospel.  It truly is good news and like Paul says in Romans 1:17, it becomes "The power of God unto salvation."  It's the way God transforms my life.  Join me on this journey.  Next week, we begin with Matthew 1 and our title is: "Stay in the Shower."