Are You the Real Deal?
5/30/18 – Pastor Brian’s Blog
When you read this blog, Judy and I will be on vacation with our children and grandchildren. We have rented a home in Missouri that will house all 22 of us. When we get together as a family, there is no doubt that there is Gower blood flowing through the veins of each of our grandchildren. You will have to decide if that is a good thing or a bad thing!! But the fact remains that when you watch my grandchildren act and interact, you can tell that they are a real Gower and not adopted!
When it comes to being a Christian it should be just as easy to tell who your spiritual Father is. I cannot take credit for this week’s blog, I am “stealing” it from Jon Bubar, a young man that Judy and I had in our youth group back in the day. Jon has made us proud; there is no doubt that he is a son of a Bubar, but there is also no doubt who his spiritual Father is.
As you read Jon’s blog this week, make sure that when it comes to God that you are the real deal and not a counterfeit, because it has eternal consequences. Enjoy!
Counterfeit Christianity. Have you ever bought an imitation thinking it was the real thing? Sometimes, it can be hard to tell the difference. It has been estimated that there are between seventy and four hundred million dollars in counterfeit currency in circulation in the United States at this very moment. That’s one out of every ten thousand dollars in print that are fake. It’s entirely possible that you’ve held one and even passed one along and never knew it. Counterfeit money is a threat to the US economy, but counterfeit Christianity poses and even graver danger to the souls of men and women.
In his book Christless Christianity: The Alternative Gospel of the American Church, Michael Horton wrote, “My concern is that we are getting dangerously close to the place in everyday American church life where the Bible is mined for ‘relevant’ quotes but is largely irrelevant on its own terms; God is used as a personal resource rather than known, worshiped and trusted; Jesus Christ is a coach with a good game plan for our victory rather than a Savior who has already achieved it for us; salvation is more a matter of having our best life now than being saved from God’s judgment by God himself; and the Holy Spirit is an electrical outlet we can plug into for the power we need to be all that we can be.”
I John 2:18 warns us that the Antichrist is coming and many Antichrists have and will rise more and more as the day of the Lord draws nearer. In verse 23, John clarifies this Antichrist as one who preaches a gospel without Jesus at the very center of it. Sound familiar? I have friends who are without a question unsaved. They listen to Joel Osteen for inspiration, but there is no Jesus, Son of God, at the core of their faith. This is a counterfeit gospel that makes people feel as though they are in good standing with God, but there is no repentance, no sin, no cross and no salvation. These false teachers lead many on a broad path that leads directly into the fires of a literal and everlasting hell.
The gospel is simple: Salvation from the just penalty of our sin comes by grace alone through faith alone in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, alone. If you’re trusting in anything else to make you right with God, you’ve been misled by the doctrine of an Antichrist. The more we see these false teachers arise, the closer we know the return of Jesus is. He is coming back soon. Are you ready? Really ready? If Jesus were to return today, would you be taken up to be with Him forever? Jesus Himself said that there is only one way to the Father and that Way is through Him alone. Nothing and no one else can save your soul. Do you know Him? Have you cried out to Him and placed your faith in Him?
“Little children, it is the last hour; and you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour.” – I John 2:18
