The Gospel is All-Encompassing

[W]e have the tendency to think that our justification is accomplished by Jesus but our growth is accomplished by us. We treat the gospel as if it were the starting blocks of the race of life. We brace ourselves against it and push off, but then we're on our own. The speed at which we run is based on our own muscles. We become Christian legalists.

Transformational discipleship, from a biblical standpoint, is different. Rather than an initial posture of weakness, real discipleship involves a perpetual recognition of our great need. Because of this, the gospel isn't the starting blocks of the race; the gospel is the track itself. It's the basis for the way we run every day of our lives.

--Eric Geiger, Michael Kelley, and Philip Nation, Transformational Discipleship: How People Really Grow (Nashville: B&H, 2012), 147.