The message of Jesus is about new beginnings. It begins belief and gets put into action with repentance, which literally means to turn around and go in the opposite direction. So what must we believe in order to start the journey?
We must believe God exists and that He
rewards those who seek Him. We must believe that we are sinners, that we can
never be good enough to earn God’s favor. We must believe that this sin problem
was solved when Jesus lived, died and rose from the dead. We must believe that Jesus
is going to return and bring a new heaven and earth.
We don’t need to believe many of the
particulars that denominations get hung up over. The manner of baptism is not
essential to salvation. The exact nature of communion, the particular diet we
choose to eat, the types of music we sing or don’t sing in worship, the clothes
we wear, the presence or absence of fermented beverages, the version of
Scripture we read. These and so many others are not essential to salvation.
So I would like to spend the first part of
this year focusing on some of the essentials and what they mean to our lives
today. If they are important, why are they important? And then, since they are
important, how should my life be different when I believe them.
You see, it is not enough to believe
something, that something must change the way we live. James says “faith
without works is dead.” If our trust in Jesus does not result in a change in
behavior and attitude, then we must question our faith, either the fact of our
faith or the object of our faith.
If you look at the results of research,
people in the church in the United States don’t look that different from the
population as a whole. In fact, we look almost identical! Our sins match
theirs. As a group, our faith has not impacted our lives very much. That does
not mean that you as an individual have not been changed by your faith in Jesus,
but we as a whole have not.