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When surveys are done, there’s always a high amount of people who say they believe in God; a recent one found that 87% of Americans believe in God, three quarters of Americans believe in miracles, 73% believe in heaven, 71% believe Jesus is the Son of God, 71% believe in angels, seven out of 10 say Jesus rose from the dead and they believe the Bible is the Word of God.
That left me thinking, “What? Where are these people? I’m sure not seeing them.”
That’s because there’s a lot of “almost” Christians in our nation today. In fact, I would say there are more “almost” Christians than non-believers.
Another poll revealed that half of Americans who call themselves Christians don’t believe Satan exists, and one-third are confident Jesus sinned while on Earth.
Now, this is a problem. We have many people saying they believe in God, angels and the Bible, yet they believe in things contradictory to the Bible.
We have 25% of people claiming they’re Christians, but dismissing the idea that the Bible is accurate in all it teaches.
Clearly, there’s a lot of confusion here.
Believing in the Bible
I also recently read that 75% of “born-again” Christians don’t believe Jesus Christ is the only way to the Father. To me, that means 75% of these born again Christians need to read their Bible.
Simply put, if you want to go to heaven, the only way to get there is through Jesus.
Why do I believe Jesus is the only way? Because the Bible says it, and I believe in the Bible—and that’s what it comes down to. Are we going to believe what the Bible says or not?
I know some people like to say all religions are good and basically teach the same thing. It may feel open-minded to say this, but it’s not the truth.
Religion can be described in one word: do. Do this, do that, and maybe you’ll get to nirvana, or wherever.
Christianity in one word? Done. On the cross, Jesus said “It is finished” (John 19:30 NLT).
Jesus is the only way to the Father because He was the only one uniquely qualified to bridge the gap between a Holy God and sinful humanity.
With one hand, He took hold of us; with the other, He took hold of God, and with nails through those hands, He died for us. There is salvation in nobody other than Christ (Acts 4:12).
This is a non-negotiable, this is an absolute. If you are a Christian, you must believe Jesus is the only way to the Father.
We can believe in or reject the Bible—but we don’t get to pick and choose what we like.
This is not à la carte Christianity, even though some people—the “almost” Christians—act like it is.
This is why Paul presents this challenge to those claiming to be believers, “Examine yourselves to see if your faith is genuine. Test yourselves. Surely you know that Jesus Christ is among you; if not, you have failed the test of genuine faith” (2 Corinthians 13:5 NLT).
Is your faith genuine? This is a powerful question that we should all ask ourselves.
For the original article, visit Harvest.org.
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Greg Laurie is the senior pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship with campuses in California and Hawaii. He began his pastoral ministry at the age of 19 by leading a Bible study of 30 people. Since then, God has transformed that small group into a church of some 15,000 people. Today, Harvest is one of the largest churches in America, and consistently ranks among the most influential churches in the country.
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