Mistaken Ideas

by Maurice Pujol
Published January 25, 2006

The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. (John 10:10)

A lot of people are reluctant to embrace Christianity because of their mistaken ideas about the faith.

Sadly, a lot of Christians are guilty of fostering these erroneous opinions. No matter how miserable their lives become, some non-believers don’t make their “leap of faith” because they look at certain Christians and are convinced they’ll be even more miserable if they do so. As Evangelist David Ring once said, how can we expect to attract people to church when half the people there look as though they’ve been sucking on a dill pickle?

People who don’t know the Word, who haven’t encountered Jesus on a personal level, think of Christianity as a series of “don’ts.” Don’t do this. Don’t do that. Don’t enjoy this life, and you’ll be rewarded when you get to heaven. This is a very childish view of our faith, but it’s one held by many otherwise intelligent adults.

Some lay people in Christian churches are guilty of presenting such an image to the world, but there are ministers who promote it as well. I have run across a few ministries which appear to be dedicated solely to pointing out what’s wrong with everybody else’s ministry or denomination. An unchurched person with no exposure to the Bible would run as fast as he or she could from anything resembling Christianity after reading some of this stuff.

If everyone who writes a book or who preaches at a popular church is so wrong, then who can be right? This is a not a question mature believers would ask, but it would be the first to come to the lips of someone in the general unchurched public.

I’m not saying there isn’t a core body of doctrine a person must believe in order to be considered an orthodox Christian (and I use the word “orthodox” in its generic sense, not in reference to any denomination). The key doctrine which sets Christianity apart from every other religion, philosophy or theology is the Resurrection.

Other people may worship dead men, their ideas or the nearest tree, but only Christians worship a risen Savior. Jesus lives, and He’s one of us, but not really “just” one of us. He actually is God Incarnate, the very Word that brought everything into existence in the first place made flesh for the specific purpose of saving mankind from the penalty of its sinfulness.

Now, this is an overwhelming concept to present anyone not familiar with the Bible, but believers need to get excited about presenting this miraculous and amazing truth that defines us as Christians. Jesus ratified and completed the entire process set into motion in the Garden of Eden on that Sunday morning when He walked out of that empty tomb. He was no longer the same. He was still God-in-flesh, but the human part was somehow glorified and different, resembling more the Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration than the “everyday” Jesus His disciples knew.

Was this new appearance a picture of what His disciples could become after their own resurrections? We shall know the definitive answer to this question at the end, but it is definitely the promise that has fueled the revival fires of Christianity for the past 20 centuries.

The early church taught one basic truth: Jesus rose from the dead. He didn’t rise as Lazarus did, back to his old self, only to die again. Jesus broke new ground, defeating sin and death, blazing a trail for those who would believe in the future. No, we won’t become gods, as some teach. But we can become a new type of human, the created beings God probably had in mind in the first place, but somehow made even better because Jesus pulled us out of the depths. Was this the Master Plan all along?

We’ll also know the answer to this one in the end, but until then we should be presenting our faith in all its wonder and awe, not as a system of “do’s and don’ts.” Jesus told the woman caught in adultery, “Go and sin no more.” If we need any instruction on what it, and what isn’t, sin, He said the Holy Spirit would dwell within His people to instruct them.

The Holy Spirit is that built-in Guide who prompts believers to do the right thing and to avoid the wrong. Any believer who has to stop and to ponder whether or not some anticipated action is wrong can rest assured it’s probably wrong, or the Spirit wouldn’t have made them stop and think.

Believers are beneficiaries of the best deal on the planet, and we walk a path devised by God, and not by man. The Holy Spirit always points us to Jesus and never prompts us to do anything counter to God’s Word. We have been promised a joyful place in eternity, but we don’t have to go through hell to get there.

Though this world is imperfect, the life Jesus offers us begins here. It begins on the very day we repent of our sins and accept Him as Lord and Savior. Though the happiness and peace of our future in eternity will far exceed anything we can imagine here, God gave us the good things of this life as glimpses of what awaits us.

As the King James Version puts it, Jesus came to bring us life and that we may have it more abundantly. Abundant life is a gift for the here and now, as well as the hereafter. We are world overcomers, more than conquerors, in Christ Jesus.

How about all believers start acting like it? Let’s stand up and proclaim our joy to a hurting world, not to put others down, but to pull them up.

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