This is an evangelistic article I wrote. Any corrections (grammar, spelling, anything!) or suggestions will be most helpful and appreciated!!
So, you call yourself a Christian?
I grew up calling myself a Christian, but there were some things that had always confused me about my religion. I've found out that I was not alone in these problems. But recently, I've also found some very good answers.
Have you ever met Christians who are just so... intense... about their faith? Maybe they're really emotional in church, maybe they bring up religious things at inopportune times, maybe they're willing to give or witness or just do things that you'd never do; they're just intense, they're just radical. And you wonder if you're supposed to feel guilty because you're not like that. These are the Extreme Christians. You can't understand how they can take all this so seriously, even to the point of hurting themselves.
If you're anything like me, you've always done everything you can to live as a good Christian. You make an effort to walk upright. You want to be a good person. I was the perfect Christian teen: ultra-conservative, Bible-toting, and hyped about apologetics and evangelism.
But even then, there were some parts of my religion that confounded me. They were just weird; I didn't get them. Not only did they confound me, these ideas went against everything that I was. I hated them.
What was I to do? I hated parts of the religion I claimed. I liked being a Christian, but some of these things just seemed wrong to me. So I declared war against these things that were contaminating my chosen faith. To my peers, I would call it "liberalism leaking into the church", "emotional manipulation", or “extremism.”
I told myself my hatred was OK because, according to my beliefs and my contemporaries, liberalism, manipulation, and extremism WAS wrong. And it's still wrong. But I used those words as a label to express my disgust at certain parts of my religion.
But then there were these PEOPLE who stood in my way. Extreme Christians who followed these terrible things as if they were the only important thing; no, as if they were the CORE of Christianity. I believed them to be soft, squishy, over-emotional fools led by crazy extremists and manipulators to adopt a self-depreciating, watered-down version of religion that could accept terrible things.
I felt like these idiotic and insane Christians were ruining EVERYTHING. I tried SO HARD to be a good Christian, and these guys just made me look bad. I knew that they had to be fakes. I knew they had be, at best, stupid and gullible, or at worst, liars and manipulators.
I was wrong.
It turns out that this “emotionalism” was the true emotional response of repentance towards Jesus Christ, our Savior.
And these “emotional manipulators” were men radically floored and changed by the mercies of God through Christ.
Their “softness” was the love they now had because Christ first loved them, though they were unlovable.
They “watered down religion” by only speaking of the character of Jesus Christ.
This “depreciation” was when our Lord washed the feet of His disciples.
And the “acceptance of terrible things” was the fact that our Lord came to save SINNERS.
Now, manipulation, liberalism, etc. really are bad things. But I had been giving out these labels wrongly. If only I could have somehow realized the things I hated were the CORE of my claimed religion, its heartbeat.
I missed the heart of my faith COMPLETELY; and the religion I ended up with was entirely based on works. And if I had been right in my belief that only way to gain a right standing with God is to work, to “be good,” then of course all those things were wrong. If “works” is the way, then I am someone to be praised, and washing another's feet is below me. And if I am a good person, the saving of what I consider a wretched man is an abomination.
The only problem is that men are SINNERS. YOU CANNOT BE SAVED by good works; you cannot be saved by your life alone.
Of course, you've heard language like that before. And you might ask me, “didn't you know we are saved by faith alone??” Of course I did! I took classes on theology and everything. I knew what distinguished Christianity from other religions. I probably knew way more than most people.
But THIS is the issue. It wasn't a reality in my life. Though I emphatically claimed to believe it, my life proved I truly did not believe it at all. I did not live out my life and behave as if it were TRUE. I did not truly believe because I never acted on my supposed "belief." My life proved me to be a liar.
When people spoke of such things as grace, mercy, or the love of God in Jesus Christ, I had no emotion, no response. I could not understand. It was part of my supposed chosen religion, so I held my tongue. I understood on a superficial level, but to me it was just a story. And in my pride, I told myself that I was right. It is just a story, just part of my doctrine that I don't have to worry about.
But LISTEN: If I had died then I would have gone to hell- and it would have been perfectly just.
JESUS CHRIST HAS COME TO SAVE SINNERS. So familiar to read, but has this ever confused you? Does it stand out in contrast against your experience of Christianity? Where your proximity to God depends solely on your personal “Christian-ness”?
See Jesus Christ- the friend of sinners and tax-collectors and all the wretched, truly vile, sinful and DISGUSTING PEOPLE OF THE WORD. This confused and insulted me to no end.
I heard that Jesus Christ came into the world to seek and to save that which was lost. He came to save the SINNER. He is the one who gives GRACE to the humble and brokenhearted! But I, I would not look at them, as I was FAR MORE HOLY THAN THEY. I tried hard to serve Jesus; WHY do these terrible sinners get to come to Him? I tried so hard, I always followed His laws- why do they get ANYTHING??
But I was trying to impress God by my ability to earn His forgiveness by being the best Christian I could. It was self-righteousness, and it was a damning sin.
Yes, God has laws, yes, God has dictates, YES God loves those who are upright in their walk. But PLEASE DO NOT FALL INTO THE TRAP THAT I DID- The laws and the things that are spoken of as RIGHT in the Bible are NOT there primarily to show you what to do- but HOW YOU WILL NEVER ADD UP.
YOU WILL NEVER BE GOOD ENOUGH. YOU WILL NEVER LIVE RIGHTLY BEFORE GOD!
All those verses about all the rewards of the godly- that's not YOU. I read the Bible thinking, "Oh, I am a good person! All this is supposed to happen to me. God is going to do all this great stuff for me because I'm so holy"- no, not only is that a wrong way to interpret the Bible, but also I WAS NOT THAT GOOD PERSON.
THAT WASN'T ME.
Look at the Ten Commandments. Have you ever lied, cheated, or stole? Always obeyed your parents? What's your thought-life like? Where does your browser go when no one else is in the room? Could you say that God is first in your life, even for one moment?
Look at the beatitudes. Can you honestly say that you have been pure in your heart? Are you meek? Are you poor in spirit, have you ever been BROKEN over your sins??? Do you thirst for righteousness like the righteousness of Christ?
We have not been peacemakers, but troublemakers. We are not pure in heart, we are impure and vile. We are haughty, proud, and arrogant. We are quick to declare our own righteousness above other men.
Discover your dire plight and desperate need.
You are NOT the good man, YOU ARE THE HATER OF GOD. YOU DESERVE TO BE PUNISHED. YOU ARE THE WRETCH, YOU ARE THE ADULTERER, YOU ARE THE SINNER IN THE HANDS OF THE ANGRY GOD.
My pride lead me to believe that I was not. I thought to myself: “Oh- I must be in the right, everyone else is so much more evil than I am!”
But listen- I was wrong.
I was wrong. Every time I felt convicted, I said to myself, "Oh, that can't be me, because I'm a good person and I want to go to heaven." Don't let your pride blind you; it is not worth it! I'll say it again, don't let your PRIDE blind you! What WILL it profit you to gain the WHOLE WORLD- but lose your soul?
God is righteous, He cannot accept Your SIN.
You might say, “Yes, but IF YOU CONFESS THAT CHRIST IS LORD...”
The only problem is that YOU CONFESS WITH YOUR LIFE THAT YOU ARE LORD.
Please listen to me.
The point of the Christian life is not to live as morally as possible so that you might get into Heaven. It is NOT ENOUGH to live as morally as possible. This is NOT what the Bible TEACHES. This is one of the reasons I hate it SO MUCH when people say, "The Bible is just a nice book of morals”- NO.
Jesus said that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the Pharisees, you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.
Pharisees are not just the ugly-looking meanies we think of the on the Bible cartoons. Let's evaluate this properly. They believed in the inspiration of the Torah, the supernatural, the resurrection (unlike the Sadducees), and the necessity of blood atonement as God had said. They were orthodox, fundamental in their theology; they were evangelistic, converting people to Judaism from paganism; they hoped for the Messiah; they fasted two days every week; they were devout; they prayed; they tithed properly.
Devotion, tithing, correct theology, praying- does your righteousness consist in anything of these things..?? Not that they are bad things, but they are not going to save you from hell!
He's saying that even the best of the BEST of religion is NOT ENOUGH TO SAVE YOU. Even if you were to live perfectly from this moment on, the debt of you sin would remain. YOU NEED TO BE BORN AGAIN. YOU NEED TO BE WASHED CLEAN. YOU NEED THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST CREDITED TO YOUR ACCOUNT INSTEAD.
The point of being a Christian is that YOU are known by your Lord, Master, and OWNER, Jesus Christ.
He is your LORD, because without His purchasing you with His blood and making you a part of his house- THERE IS NO HOPE FOR YOU.
If you are not a part of His household, you will be destroyed. Not just because you are not a part of His household, (people don't go to hell because they've never met Jesus), but BECAUSE YOU ARE A REBEL, TRAITOR, AND CRIMINAL AGAINST GOD. And unless you are SOMEHOW seen by the King as justified, THERE IS NO HOPE FOR YOU.
YOU WILL BE CRUSHED UNDER THE JUST WRATH OF A MIGHTY GOD- AND IT WILL UTTERLY DESTROY YOU!!!!
EVEN if you claim to be a Christian. Even if you try your best to live good.
This may sound unfair, but hear me out for a second. You have not offended some king of some far away country. You have not offended some old man who lives in the clouds. You have not offended a good-looking man with long brown hair who wears a white robe with a blue sash. No, forget all about that for a second, because we both know that none of those images are anything to be afraid of.
You have offended a God, an infinite being who is intelligent enough to have written the laws of gravity; the engineer who designed the DNA in every cell of every living thing on the planet; the writer of the laws of physics; the designer of the human eye; the programmer of all life. He hung the vast amount of stars in the cosmos and HE STARTED all the ENERGY and POWER of the UNIVERSE. HE is the most intelligent and powerful being that there is- and HE has lavished on you every good thing- HE has given you eyes, taste buds, and food; He created the people you love and placed you near to them; HE created you a BRAIN to think and create with; IT IS HE. He is eternal. He is a God who will stand sovereign and immense, eternal and unchanging, even when the last electron in the universe fizzles out and winds down into darkness.
HE IS POWERFUL, HE IS INTELLIGENT, AND HE HAS BLESSED YOU SO GREATLY- CAN YOU SEE HOW YOUR OFFENSE MIGHT BE GREAT AGAINST HIM? He is an infinite and Holy GOD- He gave you EVERYTHING.
How will you stand before Him on Judgment Day?
The question is NOT, “Have you asked Jesus into your heart?” but, "Is Christ your LORD?" Does HE KNOW YOU? Will He know your face when you stand before Him on Judgment Day?? If not- what hope do you have? Jesus is all you have.
Have you seen yourself as the traitor God declares you are?? Have you seen yourself as a rebel?? Have you seen yourself an anarchist? You willingly choose your own way; you set yourself up as an enemy of God, despite His absolute benevolence towards you all the days of your life.
Have you seen yourself a criminal- always seeking your own will and your own pleasure?
Then repent.
Even though I have railed against Him my whole life- He saved me. He is merciful and mighty to saved.
Why will you DIE?
Being a 'good Christian' won't save you. Doctrine won't save you. Come to Him.
How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?
