…Before your head hits the pillow…

Don’t Be Deceived

We live in a world that is controlled by emotion. We have talk show hosts who talk about feeling good about ourselves. We buy things to make us feel good. We hang out with people who make us feel like we are good people. Many attend what I would call feel good churches.

I cannot tell you how many times I have had a “Christian” tell me that a loving God would not allow someone to go to hell. They want to believe that Jesus died for everyone no matter what decisions people have made about following Him. Their emotions tell them that God is good, so therefore He would not punish a person who denies Him, He would just forgive and accept.

Jesus Christ said this in John 14:6, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” What He didn’t say is I am A way. He said I am THE way. Jesus is the ONLY way to the Father. Jesus is the ONLY way to redemption. Jesus is the ONLY way to be saved from our sins. Jesus is the ONLY way to redemption.

Jesus was and IS God and the only way to be confident that you will live an eternity with Him is by acknowledging you are a sinner worthy of death and condemnation, accepting His sacrifice on the cross, and knowing that He was raised from the dead and now sits at the right hand of God the Father.

C.S. Lewis once wrote this about Jesus, “”A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher; he’d either be a lunatic — on a level with a man who says he’s a poached egg — or else he’d be the devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse.”

“You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

Yes, Jesus was and IS God. He is the ONLY way! Ephesians 2:8-9 tells us this about salvation. “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” And who is our faith to be in? Acts 16:31 says, Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved–you and your household.”

Jesus again says in John 11:25 he says, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live,”

Acts 4:12 instructs us with these words, “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

So don’t be deceived by the emotions and things of this world. No one is good enough to gain their own salvation. That can only be accomplished through belief in the redemptive power of Christ. If a person does not believe in Jesus, they cannot spend eternity in heaven no matter how much our emotions want to think otherwise.

Just as we believe that Jesus was and IS God, we must also believe His words and the inspired words of the Bible. There is only ONE way to the Father. There is only ONE way to live eternally with God in heaven, and that is by proclaiming the name of Jesus as our Savior. Don’t be deceived.