Acts 4:12 (NLT)
There
is salvation in no one else! God has
given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved.
This verse (along with John 14:6) separates
Christianity from all other religions.
All other religions teach the same thing, that a person must do certain
things to achieve or earn favor in the sight of that religion’s God. And that religion’s God is an impersonal
God. The Christian God is the only God
who became flesh and dwelled among His people on earth. He also was crucified for the sins of the
world and was resurrected. When I was in
Saudi Arabia, I learned from Muslim friends there that it was inconceivable to
them, absolutely abhorrent, that God could be crucified for the sins of man. Such is the wonder of the love of a personal
God that Christians worship.
What makes Christianity unique to all other
religions in the world is the fact that God reached out to save us through
Jesus Christ. All other religions
require people to earn somehow favor and salvation from their god(s). Human effort is required for salvation in
Hinduism and Buddhism with both believing that reincarnation is also part of
salvation. The God of Judaism and Islam
will forgive sins, but there is no substitutionary death required. Our Christian God can also feel our pain and
suffering on earth because of what Jesus went through. Only He knows what it is like to suffer, to
die, and to be rejected, for only the Christian God became a man. For Judaism
and Islam, there is no one who has already paid for your sins in full. You remain in your sinful state and no one
can come to your defense when you face God on judgment day.
All religions except Christianity focus on
your good deeds outweighing your bad deeds for you to attain heaven. Christianity is the only religion on earth
where eternal life is obtained on the basis of God’s greatness and what He did
for you through Christ. All other
religions are based on man’s greatness earning him the right to be in heaven.
There is no salvation in the hands of any
other “god”. Christianity through the Bible teaches that you cannot earn your
way or merit favor with God and be saved.
Salvation belongs to God, and it is in the hands of Jesus alone to give
such salvation. That is what Acts 4:12
and John 14:6 teach. It’s up to you to
believe the claims of these verses. It
takes simple faith, there’s no other way to accept what these verses
claim. Jesus is the way. Believe in
Jesus and you will find salvation.
Believe and trust in any other god and the Bible is clear: you are making the greatest mistake of your
life.
What has always troubled me when I think about the
evidence for Christianity and its compelling advantages and assurances over any
other religion is why so many people reject the Christian faith. I certainly do not know why and this has
troubled other believers too. However,
there is a passage in John 3:19-20 where Jesus teaches that “men love darkness
rather than light…….” There is no other
explanation that I can find. Perhaps
this is a question for you to think about and ask others you know why they
cannot accept the unique, logical, and wonderful teachings of the Christian
faith through the Word of God.
There is no other name under heaven by which you can be
saved. Meditate on these words
describing “One Solitary Life” by James
Allan Francis[1]::
He was born in an
obscure village, the child of a peasant woman.
He grew up in another obscure village, where he worked in a carpenter
shop until he was thirty. Then for three
years he was an itinerant preacher. He never wrote a book. He never held an
office. He never had a family or owned a home. He never lived in a big city. He
never traveled 200 miles from the place where he was born. He did none of the
things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but
himself. While he was still a young man,
the tide of popular opinion turned against him. His friends deserted him. He
was turned over to his enemies, and went through the mockery of a trial. He was
nailed to a cross between two thieves. While he was dying, his executioners
gambled for his garments, the only property he had on earth. When he was dead,
he was laid in a borrowed grave, through the pity of a friend. Twenty centuries
have come and gone, and today He is the central figure for much of the human
race. All the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all
the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned, put together
have not affected the life of man upon this earth as much as this.
No comments:
Post a Comment