Unless You Believe - The One Year Book of Hope

Unless You Believe

[Jesus said,] “Unless you believe that I am who I say I am, you will die in your sins.” –John 8:24

Shortly after Holding on to Hope was released, I received a letter from a woman who took issue with what I wrote:

What really turned me off was when you claimed the only way to know God is through Christ, dismissing all other faiths. All religions and sacred texts have men of God who spoke and taught his word. We are all God’s blessed children—no matter what faith we practice, what we believe or do not believe. Gandhi did not find it incompatible to follow Christ’s precepts and practice his Hindu religion. There is mystery in the many faiths and religious practices of this world. God created it all.

It took me a while to formulate my answer and respond. I wanted to be kind, but I needed to correct her drastic and potentially fatal error—that Jesus is one of many religious options, all leading to the same end. I wrote to her in part:

I’m sorry that you were turned off by my presentation of Jesus as the only way to know God. That is what he said about himself. It is impossible to embrace his moral teaching and ignore this, his most important teaching. I would disagree with you that all people are God’s blessed children regardless of what they believe, not because I think it should work that way, but because of what Jesus said. He told people who claimed to be God’s children, “If God were your Father, you would love me” [John 8:42]. A relationship with Jesus is required to be in God’s family. John 1:12 says, “But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God.” Becoming a child of God has everything to do with what we believe and our willingness to receive Jesus. While there is mystery in the many faiths, God did not create them all. Man created most of them in an effort to make his own way toward God in rejection of the way God prescribed that we come to him, which is only through his Son, Jesus.

Have you planted your faith so firmly in Jesus alone that you are willing to stand up against expectations of religious tolerance? Has Jesus captured your heart so completely that you want to love him and lift him high?

Jesus, I believe you and therefore receive you as the unique and holy Son of God, the only Savior of the world. You are high and lifted up above all the philosophies and religions of man, and I worship you alone.

DIGGING DEEPER