The Urgency of the Christian Gospel

“How long halt ye between two opinions? if the Lord be God, follow him...” (1 Kings 18:21)

Most people in North America know a little bit about Jesus, some of his famous sayings, and some of the main themes of the Bible. Today I want to talk about one of the themes which Jesus emphasized repeatedly: the message of salvation is URGENT, and you should not delay your response to it.

If you are familiar with the words of Jesus, but you have been waffling between two opinions on him, I want to challenge you to commit your life to Jesus Christ today.

If Jesus stuff is all foreign to you, I want to encourage you to give Christianity a fair chance, and soon. I don’t care if you never set foot in a church. I just want you to be saved.

Time is short. You may not have several more decades to hum and haw over whether or not to become a Christian. As much as it’s unpleasant to think about, you could die walking out of your house tomorrow morning for all we know. Then your chances are gone.

Look, I didn’t always have this opinion on Christianity – only a few years ago I would have rolled my eyes if I read something like this. But after that, God stepped into my life in ways I had not expected or imagined. And he opened my eyes to the good news in his word, the Bible. Now that I believe eternal life is possible through Jesus Christ, I would be an absolute idiot not to share that with everyone I know. You may still think I’m an idiot – that’s fine. I’ll still put my neck out and tell you about Jesus because I love you anyway – because I know God, and I know that HE loves you anyway.

To the Noncommittal

Maybe you like a lot of what Jesus says but you have bought into the caricatures of “fundamentalist” Christianity touted by popular public figures. Maybe you think of yourself as too intelligent or progressive to believe in Jesus in a literal way. Maybe you have even gone to church your whole life but have never taken that leap of faith to accept Jesus as your lord and saviour. Maybe you want to have your church life but you don’t want to embarrass yourself by actually surrendering your life to Jesus. Maybe you think you have too much to lose.

Jesus has some important things to say to you, and I pray that you’ll listen to him.

“For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matthew 16:25-26)

“I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked…” (Revelation 3:15-17)

You think you have a lot to lose, but you don’t… You look around you and see what you think is wealth, security, happiness, even righteousness – all of it is temporary if it’s not built on the Rock of Jesus Christ. All of it could vanish and will vanish. Once you realize that, you realize how much you need God.

To the Scholar

You want to know everything, test everything, and most importantly, appear to the world as a rational scientific mind. I get it. You’re afraid that would all disappear if you gave your life to Jesus Christ. I get it. First, that’s not entirely true – see my last blog post. Second, don’t let that stand between you and Jesus Christ because in the end even your degrees and scholarly persona are temporary.

Be careful that you are not like those the Bible described as “Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (2 Timothy 3:7)

Rather, use your scholarly abilities to find the capital “T” Truth.

Jesus said, “[You] Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.”

(John 5:39-40)

Don’t put your trust in something that doesn’t last. Put your trust in Jesus Christ.

Choose Soon

Among the themes of the New Testament is the notion that Jesus is coming back at a time we will not expect. The Second Coming of Jesus is something that has been misappropriated by false teachers, mocked by popular culture, and ignored by the people who want to have some words of Jesus but not the bits that would make them sound like weirdos. Let’s hear what Jesus said about his Second Coming:

“But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,

And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.

Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.

Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.

But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up.

Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.”

(Matthew 24:37-44)

This sounds like an urgent message to me. Even when normal day-to-day life goes on all around us, people getting married, people doing their jobs, Jesus is going to come back to rescue his sheep. You want your salvation to be assured by this time, otherwise you will not be safe when the (metaphorical) floods come. We don’t know if another millennium will pass or if this will happen today, so Jesus says to be ready!

Concluding thoughts

Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, my friends. He’s standing at the door and knocking, and you just need to hear him and let him in. (Revelation 3:20)

You don’t have forever to make this decision. It’s a decision that you should not take lightly, and the Bible says you should count the cost of discipleship (Luke 14:27-33). But do not delay.

I love you. God loves you. Please pick up a Bible and see what Jesus is all about. Start with the Gospel of John for the most straightforward explanation of who Jesus is and what he’s about. Ask me or another Jesus follower if you have any questions. God bless you!

The Meaning of Faith

As an ex-atheist, I am guilty of perpetuating the false dichotomy of “reason” and faith. The popular culture of the last decade has provided ample ammunition for the rationalists’ (non-)holy war, which presents a distorted image of religious adherents as dangerous fanatics or deluded bigots. The “four horsemen” of the New Atheist movement have led the charge in describing the faithful in terms usually applied to the mentally ill or dangerous criminals: Daniel Dennett, for example, offered an analogy of an ant behaving erratically because it was afflicted by a parasite. A famous newspaper ad depicted the still-standing twin towers in New York with the caption “Imagine No Religion.” Richard Dawkins implicated even the most benign of believers with his assertion that religious extremists learned their destructive mental habits of “faith” at the hands of religious moderates. The implication is that there are two starkly different ways of thinking: rational or religious. And the religious is uniformly bad because it could just as easily take down a building as compose a worship song.

I will argue that this is an unfortunate caricature of faith. As a born again Jesus follower today, I affirm the value of the right kind of faith. To be a true follower of Jesus you must have faith, yes! But don’t misunderstand what that means. Saying you must have faith is not the same as saying you must close your eyes and cover your ears and shout “la la la, I’m not listening, I can’t hear you” until inconvenient facts go away. The kind of faith that Jesus advocates is not the kind that will make you a blindly obedient automaton. Rather, biblical faith requires careful assessment of information, a willingness to reprove error where it is found, and finally, a relational trust in Jesus.

It’s that trust part that gets people, and for good reason. There are a lot of wackos out there who can deceive you, so you want to be careful where you put your trust! Jesus understood this reality, and regularly warned people to “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” (Matthew 7:15). The Bible offers warnings repeatedly such as, “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. (1 John 4:1).

It is tempting to say that you will simply trust no one but yourself. Maybe a proven system of fail-safes like the scientific method will be your ultimate and only standard for knowing truth. But you can’t put God in a Petri dish, my friends. Actually, if we had to rely on our five senses and upon science for every bit of information, we would have a difficult time functioning as human beings. How do you know your significant other loves you? Do you have a checklist whereby you can objectively verify their love? Cards on all the right holidays and hugs of just the right duration? Will an EEG reading pinpoint what moves you about a work of literature or of music? Maybe you could chart the exact firing of electrons and then, instead of listening to your favourite song, you could just evoke the same emotions by stimulating the right series of nerves? Can a man in a lab coat do tests to determine objectively what is right and wrong, as atheist Sam Harris comes close to suggesting?

This is all a bit tongue-in-cheek, but it is to make a point. Your epistemology for knowing your spouse loves you is based upon a relational trust. The meanings which we derive from our experiences are far more subjective than “rationality” allows, and yet, they are what make us human. That subjective criterion of relational trust is the basis of the Christian life, and indeed, the singular requirement for salvation. In short, God wants a relationship with you. He doesn’t want you to be just some servant who blindly takes orders, but he wants to call you friend AND make known to you the things of God! (John 15:15). He wants you to get to know him and trust him – not some other false God, not some religious system, and not some man who claims to speak for God today. Trust only God, who as Jesus Christ presented himself to humanity and died on the cross to atone for your sins. He will give you eternal life. (1 John 5:9-13)

Forget whatever caricature of Christian faith that Dawkins or false religious teachers have spoonfed to you. Instead, look at what Jesus said and did as recorded in the gospels themselves. He gives a reasonable basis for that relational trust to rest upon. Take for example “doubting” Thomas, who would not believe Jesus was resurrected until he felt the nail prints in his hands and feet. Jesus gave him that proof, after which his skepticism was satisfied and he cried out “My Lord, and my God!” (John 20:24-28).

Jesus never rebuked Thomas’s skepticism. It is perfectly reasonable to doubt amazing things before you can have some basis upon which to accept them. Just don’t let your skepticism be the hands over your ears as you shout “la la la, I can’t hear you,” lest you miss the reasonable proof God is trying to show you.

Do you trust Jesus? Or a church?

Jesus is the way, not churches or temples

Jesus said, “Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father… But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.” (John 4:21-23)

With these words, Jesus is taking spirituality “out of the box” so to speak. Before Jesus, the way to get to God was through a system of laws and rituals called ordinances, and it was rooted in a particular place and a particular institution. But when Jesus came into the picture, he said that HE is the way to God (John 14:6; John 10:1, 7). 

So be careful when someone says that there is a different way to God. Maybe they will say that it is through a list of rules and good deeds, a set of rituals, or through membership in a church. Not so! Of course, people who trust in a church or rituals say that they are only doing so because Jesus told them to. Please consult your Bible!

Don’t I have to DO something? Good works?

No. Jesus did all the works required for your salvation!  

“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” (Eph. 2:8-9)

After you are born again, you will be led to do good works and bring forth good fruit for God. You will also leave behind sinful habits from your old life. But these things do not earn you eternal life! You will never be worthy of God through your actions – only through the mercy of Jesus. For further discussion on this topic, see this previous blog post.

Ordinances?

No. Jesus did the only ordinance necessary for your salvation!

“And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: But this man [Jesus], after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God.” (Hebrews 10:11-12)

“Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross.” (Colossians 2:14)

What about baptism or the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper? These are not ordinances in the sense that they get you closer to salvation. They are out outward actions which are merely symbolic of the real works accomplished by Jesus! Baptism represents Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection, and likewise the death of your old life and resurrection to a new life in Jesus – it is a public profession of faith in Jesus. The Lord’s Supper is a reminder of his sacrifice for us.

What about all the ordinances in the Old Testament? The Jewish temple ritual was only meant to happen for a short time, to point to Jesus, to teach us about Jesus: “Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.” (Galatians 3:24-25; see also Hebrews 10:1)

Membership in a church? Jesus did found a church, didn’t he?

Jesus does have a church, of which every true believer becomes part by virtue of their adoption into the family of God. But please understand what that means! It doesn’t mean you have to be a card-carrying member of a modern 501c-3 organization, or have been baptized in just the right building by just the right person. The church is the body of true believers, and they could be in any number of places or denominations around the world. In fact, Jesus said that the saved (read: his true church) and unsaved would be all mixed together until he returns. See Matthew 13:24-30.

The church is meant to celebrate, defend, and proclaim the gospel – but it is not the gospel itself! 

Do not box God into a denomination or a building. “God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands.” (Acts 17:24)

Which will you trust: Jesus or a church?

A word of warning to you. If you stand before God on judgement day and try to tell him that you should go to heaven because you were a member of a certain church or performed certain ordinances, he will refuse you: “Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” (Matthew 7:22-23)

Paul issued an equally chilling warning: “Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.” (Galatians 5:4)

Be careful who you trust for your salvation. Are you trusting yourself? Your ability to keep the law? The ordinances you’ve done? The church you’re part of?

Or will you trust Jesus alone?

You can’t have it both ways. If salvation is by grace then it is no more of works (Romans 11:6). If you are justified by the law, then Jesus is OF NO EFFECT UNTO YOU. You either have to trust yourself or trust Jesus – it’s very simple. Jesus illustrates this concept in parable form here.

Don’t miss what God is telling you in his Word. You must be born again.

Please pray about this. Go to the Bible and ask God to open your eyes to his true gospel. The stakes are too high to be comfortable where you are currently sitting. Forget what’s on TV. Forget the nice tie you’re wearing or the façade you put on for the world. Forget your day-to-day cares for a minute and just think about what Jesus is saying here.

Feel free to ask me any questions and I would love to explore God’s Word together with you. God bless you!