In my return to faith, I have been inspired by some online Biblical ministers who seem to always hit me between the eyes with their straight truth regarding the Gospel. I believe some of these have been prepared and called to be where they are and doing what they do online for times such as these. A few examples with links below to some favorite online messages are Ravi Zacharias, Voddie Baucham, and John MacArthur. All of these speak out against the false prophets and abusers of religion.
As a child raised by my pastor grandfather, I was always taught that the differences between real Christianity and other religions are that religion is man’s pursuit of God in trying to prove his existence. Christianity is the story of God coming to man in pursuing a relationship with US and is the only faith representing the true God coming to earth in the form of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, who died and resurrected in order that we might know Him, following Him and His ways. It always comes down to the relationship versus religion for me. It is meant to be a personal thing that THEN leads to a fellowship of believers. It is not a bunch of “believers” pursuing God corporately.
The term gospel comes from “the Old English god meaning “good” and spel meaning “news, a story.” In Christianity, the term “good news” refers to the story of Jesus Christ’s birth, death, and resurrection”. Anyone who does not believe in these historical aspects of Jesus and by faith accept his gift of salvation and forgiveness of sin does not accept the “true Gospel”.
Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life… no one comes to God but through me” (John 14:6). … That is to say, if you do not “believe” in Jesus, you cannot know God. Yet today many religions, including churches that label themselves “Christian”, teach a form of pantheism. Many pseudo-Christian churches and ministers now preach total inclusion of all humanity and religions. Ecumenicalism has brought to the world a “watering down” of true Christianity. Even in my decades of leaving the faith, I never thought that Christianity could be lived by accepting ALL faiths as truth. Even in my unbelief, I thought “if there IS a God, there is only ONE true one”. Living in doubt and selfish-ego as I did, I still knew the difference between right and wrong in this sense. I was not going to live as a hypocrite, especially since I was so critical of “them”.
I would now say that my slippery slope to being a reprobate was accepting in my “modern mind” that maybe everybody was good and right in “some way” to believe what they do. I lost sight of the fact that “there is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. (Proverbs 14:12 KJV)”. Throughout the Bible is the story of man’s way versus God’s way. Fallen man in his sinful nature is always choosing that which leads to spiritual and even physical death, while God has provided a pathway to eternal life as well as a fully meaningful life in this world. Yet, we silly humans keep coming up with our own ways and interpretations of what God has said or set in place.
One personal experience that helped define this for me was a few years ago when my wife and I attended for a short while a Unitarian Church in Florida. At that point, the only thing I thought I was missing from rejecting Christianity was the social “fellowship” of common believers and a consecrated spiritual approach to music as a musician. When a friend invited us to a concert at this church, I was impressed with the beauty of the environment and the mixture of people who were there. It was a true rainbow of ethnicity and belief systems all in one church community. There were catholics and protestants, jews and gentiles, black, yellow, red and white people…all “worshipping” together in one place. To my humanistic thinking, this was the perfect concept for a “new” understanding of how humanity is supposed to interact and exercise “faith”.
While we met some very nice and intelligent people and experienced some great music and “meditative thoughts” from the lesbian minister…even in my disobedient state of faith, I knew this was not “Christian”. It had all the tapestries of hymn singing and even biblical readings sometimes…but typically all lyrics were changed from “Jesus” or “God the creator” to names like “universal power” and even “mother earth” and other non-Biblical concepts for we “newly enlightened and educated humans”. The history and core beliefs of Unitarians are well represented at this link on Wikipedia so I will not go into them here. While I appreciated the effort and concept, it had no real appeal to my spirit as I sensed no authority or absolutes behind anything that was being preached or sung about. It fit in with my human desire to make life all about ME, social justice (another subject I will have lots to write about soon), and MY way of thinking…which we all know is always faulty. I didn’t need a church to support my ideas of Humanism which were already well entrenched.
While I am truly thankful that God in his mercy called me back to faith through his Holy Spirit with a clear understanding of the Trinity and who He is and the veracity of the Bible as His word…it now provides many new conflicts in life to deal with. Most of these conflicts revolve around my “old self” and the “new self”.
I have always understood that the call of Christ is on one hand a gift of salvation that we cannot qualify for by good works, but is a call to submit our lives to the calling of our Creator. As the Bible is basically formed around two covenants (commitments) God has made with man…the Old Testament being his covenant with the Jewish chosen people through which God would reveal Himself in this fallen world, and the New Testament where he includes ALL of humanity in his call for repentance and salvation for eternal life in his presence…the Gospel is without error or equivocation contrary to the thinking of modern man.
The Gospel of John begins with “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” This establishes the good news that Jesus was part of God FROM THE BEGINNING in Genesis. The whole Old Testament is full of instruction and prophesies that set up the coming of God as the Messiah for the Jews, and through Jesus, the covenant (commitment) was extended to non-Jews as well. If anyone truly studies the Bible, they will see that what happened in the New Testament was foretold in the Old, including the Jews’ rejection and crucifixion of He who came. Now, for 2000 years, we have had the religious frictions in the Judeo-Christian world between the rejected Christ and the resurrected Christ. Only the “Jews for Jesus” get the complete picture of God’s commitment to man.
Obviously, there are volumes of books and commentaries written to explain the Biblical truths of all this and it will take a continued lifetime to understand all we have the capacity to know on these themes. As the Apostle Paul declared “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” (1 Corinthians 13:12) In this life we live by FAITH in Him who is spirit and not flesh…and even faith is a gift, not something we can generate in our own minds. His GRACE is all we need to know and trust Him into the everlasting life we hope and live for. Yet, just like the early disciples and apostles who knew him in person…the Holy Spirit now reveals Jesus and the Gospel to us so that we may “..not be ashamed (of the Gospel of Christ), because (we) know whom (we) have believed, and (are) convinced that He is able to guard what (we) have entrusted to Him for that day. What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus.” (2 Timothy 1:12)
So, in summary, religion is man seeking God and/or making him in our own image or understanding. Real faith in the Gospel is a spiritual gift from God where he has found US and called us by name to know him and seek him. It is a lifelong quest, not just something that starts and ends at “salvation”. These times of contrived beliefs and religions are confusing to the masses. Christianity itself has been watered down and marginalized in this world to where the label has little meaning any more.
Nations or “churches” don’t have faith…people do. God no longer has “new” covenants with nations or religions…he commits to each of us individually as we believe and work towards His future kingdom and dominion over this crazy world trusting his revealed word, the Bible.
I hope you have answered his call in your life. The Gospel is there for “everyone who will”. He has given us free will to accept or reject his calling on our lives to be in relationship with Him. Our response to that call will determine not only what happens to us in THIS life, but where and how we will spend eternity. Let your spirit open your eyes to truth and righteousness. We don’t have to be bound by the evils and limitations of this world. Christians are called to live for the next kingdom, which appears to be coming soon.
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Vid for reference:
https://youtu.be/9xm4op9_0DA Ravi Zacharias testimony
https://youtu.be/G1XJ7DeR5fc Voddie Baucham on “Why you can believe the Bible”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdiriskbXlE John MacArthur “Telling the truth in a post-truth world”