By Rev. Mark Creech
Christian Action League
July 6, 2021
It seems everyone is a Christian today. A young woman once told me that she was a Christian too; she just didn’t want to be one like me. She was living with her boyfriend, smoking dope, and engaged in various debaucheries. She practiced this way of life and believed it was acceptable with God.
The Scriptures say, “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God” (I Cor. 6: 9-10).
Note the word “idolators” in the text. Idolatry is more than worshiping a graven image. It can also be when we substitute our own view of God in place of what the Bible actually says about him. Idolatry can be when we live by a value system other than the one given to us in God’s Word.
You can’t make God after your image and expect to go to heaven. You have to want to be conformed to his image. You can’t ignore God’s law and live by an alternative morality and expect to go to heaven.
Becoming a Christian means coming to the end of yourself, realizing that you are nothing more than a spiritual criminal and a moral failure by heaven’s standards. You must be forgiven, rescued, and transformed by Christ. You can’t be found until you’re lost. You can’t be saved until you know you need redemption. You won’t get to heaven until you know you deserve hell.
You must turn away from your way and say to the Lord, “God have mercy on me a sinner” (Lk. 18:13). When you sincerely trust the Lord in this fashion, your direction in life will start to change. You will find that your affections will also begin to change. Characteristically, you will start to pursue what God loves and repudiate what he despises.
Make no mistake about it; not everyone who thinks he is a Christian and going to heaven is actually going to get there.
Jesus said, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of My Father in heaven.” (Mt. 7:22). There are no false halos in heaven.
So let me be very direct. You can say that you are a Christian. But if you can’t line your experience of Christianity up with God’s revelation of himself and his will, you are self-deluded about your Christianity. You are deceived about your profession of faith. And unless you really turn to God, despite your feelings that all is well with your soul, you will burn forever in a godless eternity.
