Journey of Knowledge

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       First and foremost, it has to be said that none of what you are about to read is personal opinion or assumption.  Every word is based solely on the teachings and actions of Jesus Christ, His disciples, and God Himself, as written in the Holy Bible and as such, these undeniable facts are beyond contestation. 

     When Jesus walked the Earth, He taught a single doctrine that gave a clear explanation of what it means to be a Christian and through His actions, showed us how to carry it out. Yet today, modern Christianity has more than 200 different denominations all teaching their own altered version of Jesus' doctrine. These man made doctrines have transformed Christianity into a religion of divisiveness and contradiction when Jesus preached against both. In fact, the concept of unity was so important that Jesus actually prayed for unity among His followers in the 17th chapter of John.

 "I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me." 

     He also warned us against the dangers of Christians being divided in Matthew 12:25 when He said, "Every kingdom divided against itself shall be brought to desolation." Today Christianity is on the brink of desolation with church membership falling below 50% for the first time in 80 years, because DENOMINATIONAL CHURCHES DIVIDE GOD'S KINGDOM AGAINST ITSELF!

Our main responsibility as Christians is to be "fishers of men" and expand God's family, which is next to impossible because of all the contradictions between denominational lines. How are non-believers supposed to have faith in a religion that contradicts itself? In Matthew 7:14 Jesus says 3 things about the road to everlasting life. He describes it as narrow and difficult to navigate. He adds that few people ever find it. For the purposes of this message, we are going to concentrate on the latter. "Few people ever find it."

     Right now, there are around 2 billion people on the planet that will tell you with a straight face that they are deserving of the seat on the right-hand side of God. I may not be a Rhodes scholar, but I have enough common sense to know that 2 billion is far from the "few" that Jesus described, and we are only talking about this point in time. Throughout history there have been 10s of billions who have called themselves Christian. Since we know that Jesus isn't a liar, it is safe to assume that many of these souls were mistaken. Actually, it isn't even an assumption. Jesus Himself tells us that is the case in Matthew 7:21-23 when He says...

       “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name? And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’  

Why would Jesus turn away certain souls who believe in Him at the gates? 

Could it be because they separated themselves from other Christians behind denominational walls against His will? 

Could it be because they put their belief in a doctrine created by man because it suited them? 

Could it be because they "stored up Earthly treasures" instead of denying themselves the way He instructed us to? 

Could it be because they justified living in sin by saying that God could see into their heart?

 In 2nd Timothy the Apostle Paul foretold...

"For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths." 

       If you have ever heard anyone, say that they chose a particular church because what the church was teaching agreed with them, you know what Paul said is true and now you know how denominations were actually created. However, the majority of leaders in the Christian church will tell you that denominations exist because God gives man different understandings. Do you honestly believe that God is whispering different things in people's ears causing division and contradiction when Jesus made it very clear that He wanted His people united and to be of ONE MIND, ONE BODY, and ONE SPIRIT? In order to believe that God gives man different understandings, you have to be willing to believe that two parts of the Holy Trinity are actually working against each other and that simply isn't happening.

    God does not give man different understandings. Man gives man different understandings because men are narcissistic, self-serving, and willing to change the rules to suit themselves. God, on the other hand, is absolute, steadfast, unwavering, only has one set of rules, and He does not conform to what we believe or what makes us comfortable. Proverbs 3:5 even tells us to, "Trust in the Lord with all our heart and lean not on our own understanding." Remember when Jesus said, "difficult to navigate?"

    Today, we live in a society that tries to convince us that the truth is somehow interchangeable depending on who you may be talking to at the time, but that simply isn't the case. There is no "your truth," "my truth," or "someone else's truth." There is only THE truth and feelings nor beliefs are a determining factor in what the truth is. Modern Christianity makes getting into Heaven much too easy because we have tailored it to suit ourselves and we tell ourselves that all we have to do to walk down the Streets of Gold is choose a denomination of Christianity that agrees with us

     Truth is, Christianity was never made to agree with us. As Christians, it is our responsibility to conform to it and it is imperative that all who call themselves Christian remember that they have entered into a personal covenant with the  Creator of the Heavens and the Earth, which states that in exchange for Him sending His only Son to bear the burden of the sins of the world, that we promise to live a life that reflects His love and character.  With this sacred promise comes an incredible amount of personal responsibility to educate ourselves on the ways of God. Otherwise, we place the fate of our eternal soul into the hands of another. This puts us at risk of living our lives according to a false doctrine created by man instead of the true doctrine laid out and executed by Jesus Christ during His life on Earth. Jeremiah specifically warned against this when he tells us, "Cursed is the one who trusts in man." The fact that he was quoting our Lord should be very concerning to anyone that belongs to a denominational church. In fact, denominational beliefs are described in Proverbs 14:12 as, "ways that appear to be right, but in the end lead to death." 

     It is very important to understand that the moment we accept a denominational title, we have committed two catastrophic mistakes. First, we have willingly and knowingly separated ourselves from other Christians against our Savior's wishes. (Remember Matthew 12:25) Secondly, we have chosen to abandon the doctrine of Jesus Christ in favor of a doctrine created by man to suit our own desires. By accepting a denominational title, we essentially cease being a Christian because we are no longer following the doctrine or the example of Jesus Christ. 

      In 1 Corinthians 11:1-2 Jesus told us directly to imitate Him when He said, "Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ. Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you." In fact, Jesus tells us to "follow Him" 21 times in the Holy Bible. In Matthew 16:24 He tells us, “If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me."  and in Matthew 10:38 Jesus said, "And he who does not take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me." Christians must not only believe in Jesus, but we must conform to His example in living and express a willingness to endure whatever may come as a result. That is our cross to carry and according to Jesus Christ, if we do not deny ourselves and carry it, we are not worthy of Him. How can we be worthy of the Kingdom of Heaven, if we aren't worthy of Jesus Christ Himself?

      If we are going to have the audacity to call ourselves Christlike, we have to be willing to do what makes us uncomfortable. It's called sacrifice and God frequently calls on His people to make them. Abraham, Noah, Moses, Job, Jesus Christ Himself, and many others were called to make incredible sacrifices in God's service. It takes an enormous amount of ignorance as well as arrogance to believe that we are somehow more special than the most prominent figures in the Bible and that we are exempt from personal sacrifice, which is what most Christian leaders teach today.

    The only defense against spiritual deception is knowledge of spiritual TRUTH and a Christian's loyalty to church leaders should never be greater than their loyalty to God! The first step on the road to everlasting life is to understand that the path to the Kingdom of Heaven wasn't paved by Baptists, Lutherans, Protestants, Catholics, nor anyone who identifies with a denominational title. That narrow, difficult to navigate path that few people ever find lies in His footsteps, His teachings, and the example He set. In John 14:6, Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through ME" and He meant it, which is why He told us in Matthew 7:21-23 that He will turn many "believers" away at the Gates. 

Will you be one of them?