What Do We Believe?
What
is it that binds all Christians into a family? What is it that separates us
from all the other religions? What is it that says to the world, “Jesus is
different, follow Him”? The answer of course is Jesus Christ. Not just Jesus Christ,
it is Jesus, and Him crucified, risen, and sitting at the right hand of God.
So
what is it about Christianity that is so different? It is love. The love of God
for us that was so great that He sent His only Son as the ransom, to pay the
price Himself for our wrong doing so that we might go to heaven and have
eternal life. It was the command to love God first and to love our neighbours
as ourselves. Nowhere in scripture do we find God commanding us to hate other
people or to kill anyone just because they don’t believe as we do.
Many
religions say there are many ways to heaven, whatever their version of heaven
may be. Christians believe that there is only ONE way to heaven. It is
variously called the narrow gate and the narrow path. Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth
and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6
Christians believe that unless we are born again, unless we give our lives and
ourselves to Jesus and have a personal relationship with Him, we will not get
to heaven but we will get to hell.
So,
in summary, we believe that Jesus is the Son of God, He came He died He rose
again from the dead – all for our wrong doings and so that we can have eternal
life. In order to gain the “prize” of eternal life, we must go through Jesus
Himself. We must be born again and enter into a personal relationship with Him.
All
this is what binds the whole church together as one big family of God. We have
a difference of flavours of course, they are called denominations, but these are
the basic beliefs of all real Christians everywhere. Our faith is not in a
book, or any translation of that book, it is in a person – Jesus Christ. This all being so, let me ask you all
one simple question.
If
we truly believe that any non-believer will go to hell, how can we not tell
them about Jesus, heaven, and eternal life?
How
will we answer that question on the day of judgement? How will we account for
the members of our own family who died not knowing Jesus or not knowing about
Jesus?
We
must maintain our obedience to the great commandment to preach the Gospel. As
the Word of God says in Romans 1:16, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the
salvation of everyone who believes.” The Gospel is the Power of God for
salvation. Yet in thousands of churches worldwide, the Gospel is virtually
never preached and virtually no-one is ever saved.
So it looks like it’s up to us – up to you and to
me – to preach the Gospel to anyone or anywhere we have opportunity. Perhaps
“share the Gospel” is a better way to put it as nobody like being preached at,
least of all in a one to one environment. And remember, God never asks us to do
something we cannot manage to do as He will always help us get the words right.
He will use even our worst efforts for the good of His Kingdom.
P.S. Don’t forget the repentance bit of the Gospel
– OK?
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