Narrow-minded Christians – Part 3

Religion is never — as in never, ever — the way to eternal life, to truth, or to genuine faith.  Only the Lord Jesus Himself sets us free as we receive His truth and embrace it with all our hearts.  We need Jesus.  We need His life.  We need His grace and strength and help.

We can see evidences of our inner response to God in the choices we make, and in the “loves” that we allow to rule our hearts.  The older we get, the harder it may be for us to simply trust and follow God.  When we see that He’s not leading us in the direction we want to go (toward self-gratification), we are tempted to switch paths and to switch our allegiance inside.

Jesus Christ makes it clear that anyone who listens to God the Father and learns from Him will turn to follow Him.  (You can see this for yourself in John 6:44 & 45.)  So while the Christian message may not be proclaimed in every place, God Himself is speaking to people in every place.

But how can we know that what we “hear” in our hearts is the truth of God?  How can we even know that God has been calling to us?  For one thing, God always speaks the same message.  And He has never left a generation of human beings without a witness to Himself.

It is often pointed out that Christianity is less than two thousand years old.  And it’s true that the specific gospel of Jesus Christ is only that old.  But the message of God’s salvation — and all that Jesus taught and preached — is much, much older, going all the way back to Adam and Eve.

The Scriptures are the faithful record of what God has spoken and what He calls us all to believe.  The Bible is a tangible witness to God’s truth, and the Bible declares Jesus Christ to be the one and only Savior of the world.

No religion takes us to heaven.  No theology saves us.  No set of rules will make us God’s children.

Religions do not possess life or the keys to life.  They cannot offer life.

Religion is a somewhat fixed expression of human beings and what they believe.  It is a code of life and faith.  Most religions are built on human desires, human fears, human needs for order.  In the case of theistic religions, religion also describes a manner of worship.

But no religion contains life anymore than a piece of lumber contains its own life.  If you want to reach the life that was once in the wood, you must find a living tree.  The crafted wood may be very beautiful.  It may be very strong.  But only the tree has life in itself.

God is the living tree that we all need.  We must draw our spiritual life from Him  It is a waste of our time to try to draw life out of dead wood that has already been cut apart and shaped by human hands.  Specifically, Jesus Christ is the living tree, or as He said it, the living vine.  His own roots are eternally in the Father, and if we want life, we must be living branches that remain alive in Him.

So the question of eternal life is never answered by religion.  The real issue is the life of God, the truth that flows out from the true and living God.  The test of real faith is not how well it tolerates other views, but whether or not it is based in the reality of God Himself.

Faith, to be of any eternal value, must be based in the truth and reality revealed by God.  Only faith in God and in what He says will bring us to the right place for eternal life.  In the Gospel of John (6:44,45), Jesus says that to hear and learn from God is to follow the Son: Jesus Himself.

That’s the root of all genuine Christian faith.  To truly know God is to understand that the true God is revealed and offered to humanity only in the work and Person of Jesus Christ.  “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”  (Acts 4:12, NKJV)

No religion, then, Christian or otherwise, will save anyone.  Eternal life is only offered to us by God through Jesus Himself.  We need Jesus.  Our confidence and all our hope must be in Him, not in any religious trappings that get attached to simple faith.  Jesus saves, as the old slogan goes.  Only Jesus saves.

Trust in Jesus, not in anything or anyone else.