Tullian Tchividjian answers the following questions in one of his most recent blog posts.  I added the questions and quoted Tullian below.

How does the story of Jonah demonstrate that Christians need the gospel?

TT:  ”The story of Jonah shows us that the gospel—the good news that God relentlessly pursues sinners in order to rescue them—is just as much for Christians as it is for non-Christians. Jonah’s life proves this, because Jonah, who knows God, obviously needs divine deliverance as much as anyone else in the story. In fact, his need for rescue gets far more emphasis than anyone else’s. It’s his destitution, not that of the Ninevites, that gets the most play. That alone should be enough to convince us that God’s rescue is a continuing requirement for Christians and non-Christians alike.”

Was the work of Christ on the cross only important to us at the point of conversion?

TT: “The gospel not only saves us from the penalty of sin (justification), but it also saves us from the power of sin (sanctification) day after day…Our daily sin requires God’s daily grace—the grace that comes to us through the finished work of Jesus Christ.”

Is the Gospel relevant everyday of a Christian’s life?

TT: “Christians need the gospel because our hearts are always prone to wander; we’re always tempted to run from God. It takes the power of the gospel to direct us back to our first love. Consciously going to the gospel ought to be a daily reality and experience for us all. It means, as Jerry Bridges reminds us, ‘preaching the gospel to yourself every day.’  We have to allow God to remind us every day through his Word of Christ’s finished work on behalf of sinners in order to stay convinced that the gospel is relevant.”

How does the Gospel completely change who I am?

TT: “The realization that my daily relationship with God is based on the infinite merit of Christ instead of on my own performance is a very freeing and joyous experience. The difference between living for God and living for anything else is that when we live for anything else we do so to gain acceptance, but when we live for God we do so because we are already accepted. Real freedom (the freedom that only the gospel grants) is living for something because we already have favor instead of living for something in order to gain favor.”

Read the entire article here.