Think of the Lord as Reality

Nearly thirty years ago I wrote a letter to a very dear friend testifying of my new-found faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. Fourteen years later when we met again, he remained the same dear friend, but no mention was made of the letter. Five years after that we met again. This time he did ask about the changes within me and when I mentioned it was all due to Jesus, he didn’t dispute that. He had grown up knowing of the hypocrisies of both Protestants and Roman Catholics fighting and killing one another and saw nothing in that kind of “Christianity” to attract him to the things of God. Praise God though that he didn’t think of Jesus as a hypocrite, a fighter or a killer.

Now in his 88th year I visited him again recently, but before doing so, I spent much time in prayer asking the Lord to fill his mind with questions about Jesus and the Bible. Within ten minutes of our meeting the first question came and it became clear that the best way to answer it and any other, was to get him to think of the Lord as Reality and anything that didn’t line up with Reality as religious. In other words, avoid confusing the Lord with religious people whose preference it is to lean to their own understanding rather than in all their ways acknowledge Him Proverbs 3:5-6. “The church has always had more people in it doing that than those seeking the mind and will of God,” I said to him.

Over the next few days I was graced to have three other meetings with my old friend. On the last day he told me when he was a young child his Sunday School teacher told him and the other kids, “if you don’t give your heart to Jesus, you will go to hell when you die.” So frightened were he and some others in that class they never went back! Later she visited his home and spoke with his father, but rather than share the love, mercy and forgiveness of God she moralized him instead. One can never know the heart of another person, Christian or otherwise, but again, the church has always had its share of moralizers within it. Such people know their Bibles quite well but it is extremely doubtful they know the God of the Bible equally as well.

Sunday School teacher or not, it is never a Christian’s job to preach the gospel of Christ in a condemning, moralizing manner. The Holy Spirit accompanies no such preaching, but a religious spirit always will; I told my old friend that truth, explaining to him the grand difference between being convicted by God and being condemned by the devil. However, there was a time when he was under the Holy Spirit’s conviction. Some years later as a young man he attended a gospel meeting and the call was given for people to give their heart to Jesus. “I wanted to go forward,” he said to me. “I really wanted to, but something powerful held me back. Was that the devil, do you think?” I answered in the affirmative, “Yes, that was the devil.”

In sharing with me other experiences he’d had with Christians down through his long years, condemnation came with their gospel preaching not conviction. Hypocrisy was not in short supply either. One gospel preacher visiting the small town he once lived in ran away with the money from the meetings he held, plus a woman not his wife! The reputation of the Catholic priest of the town was little better – a penchant for strong alcohol and his live-in housekeeper apparently! Praise God, however, it was conviction he was under again when we sat and talked. He asked for my viewpoint on heaven and hell and I gave Him Jesus’ viewpoint. Both are real; the first is where God is, the second is where God is not. He got that.

My old friend needed no convincing that when Jesus Christ came to earth as a Man, He was also God Almighty Incarnate. He needed no convincing that Jesus came to die on a cross for his sins. He was all ears and eyes to my demonstration of how that took place. I picked up one of his books, held it in my hand saying, “This book contains every sin I’ve ever committed. Jesus took my every sin written in this book, past, present and future on that cross and left me with a clean slate. I then asked him to act as Jesus by taking that book from my hand. “What’s in my hand now?” I asked. He said, “Nothing … Oh, I get it. They’ve all been taken away.” For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him 2 Corinthians 5:21.

When it came time for me to leave, he said, “I need God in my life.” To allow him to hear his own answers, I asked him, “Is Jesus Christ, God?” He said, “Yes.” I asked, “Did He die for you as well as me?” His response, “Yes.” My response, “Do you believe Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life and that nobody gets to God except by coming through Him?” John 14:6. His response, “Yes.” My response, “Well then, do what you held back from doing all those years ago. Turn to Him and ask Him to come into your life.” Like most Gospel messengers I encouraged my old friend to start getting to know Jesus by reading the Gospel of John and to set aside everything he may not understand as he reads it. He said there were a couple of Bibles in the house.

Totally ignorant of the reality that they were blessings from God at the time, my old friend and his wife were profound influences upon my life as a young person nearly fifty-four years ago. Those influences continued when I lived near them for a few short years as well as living far away from them for many long years. I have never forgotten ether of them or what they did for me and those influences remain to this day. That is why I consider it the grandest of all blessings to be used of God to water the seeds of Christ’s word first sown into his life eighty-odd years ago, even if the Sunday School teacher who sowed them appeared to be little more than a moralizer. So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void……… Isaiah 55:11.

Contrary to popular Christian thought, the institutional church is not a good witness to Jesus Christ it is a sad witness. I’ve been privileged to speak with many people like my old friend and encourage them to think of the Lord as Reality rather than religious even if I didn’t use those exact words. And many have been willing to hear me out. Multitudes of people often think about God and what He might be truly like. They know he’s not the “Jesus-loves-everybody” God who turns a blind eye to every pope, priest, pastor and pervert who pimps His name. They know facing Him in judgment is a real possibility even if they wait decades before giving it serious thought. But they will not share their thoughts with religious people giving no witness to the reality of Jesus.

As has been said numerous times elsewhere on this blog, it is not Jesus Christ Himself that many unchurched people are not attracted to, it is the people and institutions who say they belong to Him. That’s why they can walk or drive past churches giving them a wide miss. Church programs and activities, watered-down gospel messages designed to appeal, pastors dressed to look cool in the pulpit – none of that influences outsiders such as my old friend to become insiders. That kind of “church” whilst it does appeal to multitudes in this day, they find that just as distasteful as the crowd who judge and moralize them. Jesus said of us, You are the light of the world…… Matthew 5:14. Only as the Holy Spirit leads and guides is this the reality.

Something else about old unchurched people. They don’t buy the lies coming from pulpits that the younger generations in churches have bought. They lived in a time when everyone knew without question what is right and what is wrong. That’s why they have no time for the politically correct spiritual cowards who have embraced the lies of Satan with regards, same-sex practice and marriage, transgenderism, man-made climate change and, “we all worship the same God.” They may know little about God, but they know enough to understand that, “keeping up with the times” is not in harmony with the holy God they’ve heard about. Some also see clearly that it was not the outsiders who led the way with these; it was the insiders – the so-called church!

Encouragement for unchurched people of any age: Would you too think of the Lord as Reality rather than religious. For if the day comes when you know you want God in your life, it will be reality you’re looking for much more than religion. Jesus came to earth to do away with religion mainly because religious systems, traditions, rules, laws and observances are a stumbling block to anyone seeking a personal encounter with God. You can sit in a church for eighty years getting caught up in all that but yet never know God for yourself or what He is like or what He has for you. What a waste! The institutional church is full of such people around the world; that explains it’s lack of genuine influence, power and authority in society. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. Do not be carried about with various and strange doctrines Hebrews 13:8-9.