Responses maintain coming in from the previous two articles I wrote on fake Christs. Most of you have at least been superficially pleasant, that’s encouraging. Thank you. However, there is a nagging suspicion that the real message I am looking to communicate remains being neglected through lots of you. There are recommendations that I need to say much less, and make it extra tolerant (alongside the lines that everybody is right in their very own manner, so do not rock the boat). Some are nevertheless involved about my affiliation. (Yes, I do work with a small organization of Christian believers. Maybe we ought to have a competition to pick a name for us!) Others are involved approximately which version of the Bible I use, or about diverse evils that exist inside the world these days. Nevertheless, I want to press on with what it is that I am sincerely trying to get at.

This article is about Jesus Christ… The literal Son of God… The historical preacher from Nazareth, who walked the earth 2,000 years ago, and whose teachings are contained in the first 4 books of the New Testament. Scripture says that salvation can not be located without him.

I believe that no quantity of reward and worship, religious activity, jargon or theology can take the region of simple, childlike faith on this same Jesus and all that he said.

Jesus ended his sermon at the mount (Matthew five-7 ) with the story of a wise guy and a silly guy. Both men heard the teachings of Jesus, but handiest one obeyed them; and he turned into the one who was stored.

Try a little test. Without opening your Bible, attempt writing down ten or twenty matters that Jesus instructed his followers to do. Not memories. Not prophecies. Not promises. Not something from the Old Testament or from the Epistles. Just matters that our Lord and Saviour is certainly recorded as having said for us to do.

This experiment has been tried with heaps of people all over the international, with only a handful capable of get even ten instructions of Jesus. Isn’t this abnormal? People who can tell you the whole thing that Paul stated about ladies having long hair, the whole lot that Solomon said about prosperity, what the 4 horsemen of the Apocalypse represent, all the presents of the spirit, the distinction between a bishop, elder, deacon, and pastor, what is wrong with the Mormon Church, the meaning of numerous church vacations, the life story of Martin Luther and John Calvin… And yet they could not inform me ten things that Jesus told his followers to do. Why?

Could it’s that we’ve got in no way seriously notion about simply obeying Jesus?

Jesus stated, “Why do you name me Lord, Lord, however do now not do the things I have informed you to do?” (Luke 6:forty six )

Most people have a theological faith in Jesus as “Lord”, but one way or the other this faith does not translate into obedience to a lot of something that he advised us to do.

If you asked personnel to listing ten or twenty matters that they have to do on their jobs, the challenge could be fairly easy. They could simply mentally go through their day. They might be able to bear in mind the regulations on the basis of their own moves… Due to the fact they’re inside the addiction of planning their lives round those guidelines. “I need to be there by way of a positive time. First I even have to check the mail… Or sweep the floor… Or fill the truck up with fuel… ” And so on, for the duration of the day. It’s smooth to bear in mind, because it’s what they do. But it’s not easy for us to keep in mind what Jesus told us to do, Christian Bible studies due to the fact the frightening truth is that we are no longer inside the dependancy of doing what he has told us to do. We too often take as a right that we’re doing the need of God just with the aid of doing what “feels right” or what those around us are doing… Specially if it’s some thing of a religious nature.

No surprise there are so many disagreements among Christians! We’re each following our own non-public “revelations” extra than the infallible teachings of Jesus Himself, as contained in scripture. And the worst component approximately that is that we every get the feeling it must be incorrect to question all and sundry’s right to say that something they’re doing has been in my view accepted with the aid of Jesus. It’s OK to invite the Jews to question their traditions… Or the Catholics. But in terms of Protestant traditions, evangelical traditions, Pentecostal traditions, and our personal personal traditions, we guard the traditions, although the give up end result is that they make the Word of God of no impact. Why now not just set them all aside, and sit on the ft of Jesus for some time to get a honestly clear image of what it’s far that he has advised us, via his teachings, to do.

The most critical thing approximately that is that we’ve come to just accept as ordinary a wide variety of teachings about how to reap eternal salvation… As although each of us (and every denomination) is free to make up our very own policies for salvation… So long as our regulations put in a plug for Jesus someplace alongside the manner. And we expect that the diverse formulas for salvation will all “paintings”.

But handiest faith in Jesus will shop us. Not faith in a doctrine approximately salvation. If, as an instance, a person tells you which you handiest want to mention a touch prayer, asking Jesus into your coronary heart, and you may be guaranteed eternal salvation if you do this… What you want to ask is that this: “Did Jesus (the actual historical Jesus of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) say that was all I needed to do to be stored?” If you don’t do this… In case you simply take delivery of this method for salvation because a person gave it to you, then you definately are workout faith in that person, but now not faith inside the actual Christ (despite the fact that you could use his name whilst saying your prayer). You are, in essence, asking that character into your heart. That character has end up your Saviour. And you’ll be in extreme problem whilst you stand before God and try and argue that you did what they advised you without ever checking to peer if the actual Christ stated that became true enough.