Leading People to the Lord Jesus Christ-Part Three
False Gospel
Sometimes individuals are zealous to see people receive
Jesus into their life. Being zealous can be a great thing. In fact most
Christians need to be more zealous in sharing their faith. Where there becomes
a problem is when individuals are
presenting a false gospel. In order to get individuals to receive Jesus, they
give false promises and describe heaven in an unbiblical manner.
FALSE PROMISES
Being a Christian is fun and easy
Yes, it is true that being a Christian when your heart is right and you are
walking in the spirit can be enjoyable and easy. But when your
walking in the flesh it is very hard to obey the will of God. Which leads to guilt and feeling condemnation from the enemy and
conviction from God. When walking in the flesh we miss the will of God
and walk out of the full covering of God. Serving God becomes hard and we feel
like he has left us. The person feels like it is too hard to serve God and
certainly does not see Christianity as fun and easy.
Even when we are
serving God with our whole heart there are trials and tribulations. God refines
us and it is not fun at the time. In fact it can be very painful at the time.
The refining fire can get very hot at times.
A person should
accept Christ because they are a sinner needing a savior, not because it will
be fun and easy.
If you become a
Christian God will meet all your needs and He will bless you abundantly
God will meet our needs and
will bless us abundantly in the long term. But He is not Santa Claus. And our
understanding of what our needs are and what blessing is quite different than
His. The reality is that a person may receive Jesus and all hell break loose in their life. They may lose everything and then
gain Him.
A person should
accept Jesus because He is Lord, not because of what they will get.
If you are
wanting love, my church has all kinds of loving people.
I hate to bring the news to
you, but I don’t care what church you go to-some of the people are jerks, not
loving, caustic, and poor examples of Jesus Christ. And some of these people
seem to have a way to hone in on new Christians. Christians can also be very
cliquish. A person could become a Christian to receive love and they come to
think the people at the bar were more loving.
A person should
become a Christian because they have come to understand Gods love for them, not
to get love from others.
HEAVEN
At times individuals will
describe in an unbiblical manner. They hope to make heaven appealing so that a
person will become a Christian.
I have heard people
say “if you go to heaven you will be able to skate board, go boating, ski, etc
for eternity”. Your dog will be in
heaven. Your favorite uncle will be there. We have no idea if there will be
skateboarding, boating, or skiing in heaven. We have no idea if our pets will
be in heaven. We know nothing about the salvation of their uncle.
In order to get
someone to accept Jesus we try to make heaven appealing. Instead it should be
the fact that we will be in the presence of our loving Creator. He has prepared
a place for us, we don’t know what it is like, but we know it will be
absolutely wonderful.
I do not believe the
fear of hell will motivate people to serve Jesus. Neither will false promises about
heaven. When you are facing tough times on this earth, you may not have hope
for the future. However, if you understand the love of God for you, you can
make it through the tough times when it seems He is not there. A person who
truly understands the love of Jesus and what He did for them will automatically
what to give love back to God. The more they comprehend his love for them as a
sinner, the more they want to give their heart to Him.
We meet many people
on the street who became Christians because of false promises and a false
concept of heaven. Many of them are backslidden and feel Christianity didn’t
work for them. They are hopeless. Of all people, Christians should be full of
hope. But if you come to God for wrong reasons or false concepts, you will
ultimately be disappointed.
In our next nugget
we will discuss the topic of “Numbers verses True Conversions”.
Copyright © 2003 Richard D. Dover. All rights reserved.
This material can be used without written permission if it is not used to make
a profit, all comments are quoted in context, and this copyright tag is
included with document. You must include the URL.
http://www.inhisstepsministries.org
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations used are from the New American Standard Version (NASB).