Salvation in the Gospel = the quality of Jesus’ life in the Gospels (including his supernatural mental health) being available to us starting in this lifetime before we die.
Idol = A vision of what we think will give us “thick/vividly bright colours of satisfaction” (e.g. hedonism, being perfect, being right, being liked, being popular, being successful, being smart, being safe, being strong)
Idea of following Jesus = A vision of Jesus’ alternative
“believing in the Gospel” = not just cognitively believing the “theological multiplication table” but trusting Jesus with our heart and gut (which leads to action, otherwise there is no trust) that his vision for our life is more satisfying than the idol’s vision of our life.
Our flesh, the world, and the devil conspire to give us an “attractive car commercial” in our imagination of these idols. Bluntly speaking, at first, they seem more bright and sunny with splendour than Jesus’ alternative which may seem dim and cloudy with grimness. So when this happens, we need to “trust Jesus with our heart and gut (which leads to action)” that his quality of life/lifestyle leads to true and deep satisfaction. Even though that goes against our very persuasive imagination at the moment. After action (and some time, though the duration may vary) our heart, mind, and body will end up feeling the effects of Jesus’ alternative truly being more bright and sunny with splendour than the idol (which is actually the one that is dim and cloudy with grimness).
A concrete example is allowing the raw/authentic “unlovable” parts of us to be loved by God and his community. Even after we “say the sinner’s prayer”, it’s hard to show the emotionally naked/rawly vulnerable parts of us to other humans (and God too). We cognitively know that God unconditionally loves us and (some of) God’s community unconditionally love us, but our imagination is scared out of its wits with shame. Here, the idol is what the flesh/world/devil have conspired to embellish in our imagination – we cannot authentically and vulnerably show the “shamefully unlovable” parts of us. Because if we do, we will not be loved. So the idol of hiding these parts of us seems more bright and sunny in our imaginations (“show the acceptable and lovable parts of you to stay accepted and loved, your social life will be soooo good!”). The Jesus alternative seems more dim and grim of showing our “unacceptable”/”unlovable” parts of us so that those “unacceptable”/”unlovable” parts of us can viscerally feel unconditional acceptance/love from God and his community. So, even though our embellished imagination makes it extremely hard, we trust that Jesus knows his stuff, and that his alternative is better than our idol. So we act on it in “belief”/”trust” in Jesus. The duration of time varies, but sooner or later we realize that Jesus knew his stuff, and it turns out that his alternative was the actually the one with true splendour and thick/vivid brightness of freedom while the idol was actually the one that was dim, grim, enslaving, and heavy. This visceral realization can’t happen before trust-filled action. After we act and share who we truly are in our depths – our raw, authentic, vulnerable personality pimples with no social cosmetics on, we feel that it was actually the social cosmetics lifestyle that was truly suffocating, restricting, and heavy. Carrying that shame around constantly was like carrying a deadlift squat barbell with Olympian weights on wherever we went. And with Jesus, we release the deadlift and truly feel alive to soar in his freedom.
