The problem of isms

"When the gospel is reduced to a catalog of isms where I choose the one most attractive and comfortable for me, I can participate extensively in Christianity without much personal sacrifice, and with my self, unchallenged, at the center of it all."

Examples: Formalism, Legalism, Mysticism, Activism, Biblicism, "Pyschologyism," "Socialism"

"These isms also appeal to our environmentalism. We tend to believe that the sin that surrounds us is more dangerous than the sin that resides inside us. This is why it is hard for a husband to understand that he can't blame his coldness on his wife, more can the wife blame her bitterness on her husband, more can their child blame his rebellion on his parents' failures."

How People Change Timothy S. Lane and Paul David Tripp

The Gospel Gap

"The gospel gap in many of our lives doesn't stay empty either. If we do not live with a gospel-shaped Christ-confident, and change-committed Christianity, that hole will get filled with other things. These things may seem plausible and even biblical, but they will be missing the identity-provision-process core that is meant to fill every believer."

How People Change Timothy S. Lane and Paul David Tripp

I call this the God-shaped hole--to me this is more accurate. We need God--Christ is the gospel!

Effects of Our Identity in Christ

"Without an awareness of Christ's presence, we tend to live anxiously. We avoid hard things and are easily overwhelmed. But a clear sense of identity and provision gives us hope and courage to face the struggles and temptations that come our way."

How People Change Timothy S. Lane and Paul David Tripp

"His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence."(2 Peter 1:3, ESV)

Identity

"[E]ach of us lives out of some sense of identity, and our gospel identity amnesia will always lead to some form of identity replacement. That is, if who I am in Christ does not shape the way I think about myself and the things I face, then I will live out of some other identity.
Often in our blindness, we take on our problems as identities."

How People Change Timothy S. Lane and Paul David Tripp