What follows will only hold meaning to those who deep down have a nagging suspicion – or have become convicted by the Holy Spirit – that they are ‘religious but not right with God’. May this be a signpost for your wandering heart.
So, what is true ‘Christian’?
You certainly could become very confused by looking at the Catholic Church or the Church of England – only the Bible will tell you what a true ‘Christian’ is. It is one who follows Christ/Messiah. There is an immense difference between “Christianity” and Biblical Christian Faith. The former is a religion mostly viewed through a Western lens. The latter is a way of life centred on the Jewish Messiah, Yeshua (Jesus) in obedience to the One True God, the God of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob and we who strive to follow Yeshua do so NOT because we believe that ‘Christianity’ is the truth, but because Yeshua the Messiah IS the truth. It is He who said ‘I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father except through Me’ (John 14:6). He is the truest expression and declaration that God loves us all, He made us all in His image, but He is a holy God and we are all sinful people.
All of us, no matter who or what we think we are, have sinned and come short of God’s standard of righteousness. The problem is innate in us and there is nothing that we can do by ourselves neither can any other person get rid of our sin and the judgment for it. God is the Righteous Judge and has a set a day when He will judge the sins of everyone who has ever lived and will ever live. That sentence is everlasting death, punishment and torment in a place called the Lake of Fire where hell itself will be thrown into and was created for Satan and his evil angels.
God loved us, all people, that He paid the price to save us from this.
He came and dwelt among us in the Person of Yeshua, lived a completely sinless life and kept the Law of God in perfect righteousness and offered Himself as the substitutionary sinless atoning sacrifice on the Roman cross where He died for us. His sinless blood was shed as the price of our redemption. He was buried and rose from the dead on the third day proving that He is the Messiah, the Son of the living God.
When we change our minds and believe what God has said in the Holy Scriptures (i.e. putting our faith in God – not a church, a religion, an organisation, but the One true God) and turn from our sin to Him with all our hearts, acknowledging our sin against Him and to Him in faith (not to a church, or a priest but to God), the Bible says God has promised to forgive us, to impute the righteousness of Jesus to us, gives us the gift of the Holy Spirit who comes to live in our hearts and who begins the process of changing us from the inside out as we follow Yeshua the Messiah. The proof of the Holy Spirit of God dwelling in a true follower of Yeshua will be deepening faith (trust and belief producing obedience) towards God, increasing love for God, His people and others and hope resting entirely on Lord Yeshua’s sacrifice for our sin.
The end of our faith is salvation – from the wrath of God, the everlasting judgment at the great day of the final judgment to eternal life and peace with God, in God and of God. ‘For God so loved THE WORLD that He gave His only begotten Son that WHOEVER believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through Him might be saved’ (John 3:16-17).
God’s message to the whole world is that He loves the human race, He is our Father and He wants everyone to know Him. He sent His Son into the world as The Way to Him – the ONLY Way. Again, in case the above isn’t clear, it is by grace through faith in Yeshua, the Holy One, the Son of the living God – not religion. I urge people not to take anything stated above as truth without searching the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures themselves (the Bible).
May the One true God open your heart to receive His knowledge of His love, His truth and His salvation. Romans 5:6-8 in the Greek Scriptures says this: ‘For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ (Messiah) died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love towards us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ (Messiah) died for us.’ ‘The wages of our sin is death – but the gift of God is eternal life in His Son, Lord Yeshua the Messiah’ (Romans 6:23).
May you open up the New Testament and read for yourself, open your heart and believe and receive the free gift of eternal life and peace with, in and of God. The choice is yours and must be yours alone. Yeshua the Lord Himself is the anchor and the Bible is what you need to come to know the will of God for you in His Son. God is watching and knows each person who genuinely wants to step out of religion and find Him and He will help you and guide you if you seek Him with all your heart. God bless you.
Leave a Reply