I hear it all the time, "What makes you think Christianity is the true religion?" Well, first of all, I don't believe that Christianity is a "true" religion, I believe that Yaweh is the one and only true God. I believe that God is, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. I believe that the Father loved man so much that he sent the Son to deal with the impossible chasm between us. I believe that after Jesus died and rose from the grave, the Spirit was sent to live in everyone who declared Jesus as Lord and Saviour. There is a huge difference in this from all other religions.
You see, in all other "systems" man has to do something to earn his redemption. There is always some scheme, some work, some thing that a person has to do, to work at, to merit what is being offered. The Father, the Son, the Spirit came after us. We were too stupid, too lost, too blind to even know that we needed rescue or to know that there was something better than this. Jesus came to open the eyes of the blind, to let us know that we had a choice, to let us know that we had a Father who loved us enough to come after us, to sacrifice himself for our benefit. Jesus came in obedience to the Father but also out of love for man.
We can't buy or earn our redemption even if it was in our power to do so. You can't buy a gift that is freely offered. We can try to put a mask on the offer so that we can put our own system on it so we can feel good about receiving it. We can act like being more kind, more loving, more generous will make us more worthy. We can act like praying more, reading God's Word more, singing more, giving move, serving more will make us more worthy. We can beat ourselves up, light lots of candles, confess a lot, pray in the right manner, dress in the right clothes, say the right words will make us more worthy. But all of it is man's way of trying to earn God's grace.
The crazy thing about grace is, it is never earned; it's given for free. Our Father looked on us with such love that his heart was breaking for us who were lost in the darkness that was causing us to suffer. He looked on us and longed for us to be back in fellowship with him. That love caused him to reach out to us with an incredible offer, something that no man-made religion or systems had to offer and the Word of God is clear about it; absolutely crystal clear:
“We who are Jews by birth and not ‘Gentile sinners’ know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified. (Galatians 2:15-16)
So how do I know that no other religion is true and that Christianity is the only way? Because no other religion or system known to man has Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the sacrificial lamb, the Way, the Truth, the Life, the author of our faith, the Alpha and Omega, the first born of many, the only way to the Father. You have to earn your way in Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and every religion on the face of this planet. Do I dare mention Catholicism in this too; that system of man that has striped away the grace of God to leave a system of meriting God's favour?
No, there is nothing that any other religion can offer that can compare to what Jesus Christ offers us. It is not what we can do for God but instead what he has done for us. It is not about how we can serve him but how he has served us. His gift of redemption is a free gift and his love is all consuming. Nothing you can offer is good enough so he offered himself instead. There is nothing that you have that God needs but still, by his grace, he has poured out his incredible love on us. You don't deserve it but it is yours nonetheless if you are willing to accept it. And why wouldn't you? It's incredible. It's free. It's everything you ever needed and more. We cannot be redeemed by observing any laws or systems of laws but only by faith in Jesus Christ.
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