Table of Contents
The inefficiency of any worldly efforts for finding hope
Many plans have been laid to heal the sickly state of mankind but all of them have failed. We are being told that the current warfare is aimed to bring hope and save the world from the evils that exist therein, and put an end to all war. But this will also fail. Democracy has almost disappeared. On every side we are threatened by new wars.
The UN was created with the aim to thwart the hostile intentions and the tensions that occur between the different countries, but now its sorrowful consecutive failures are one of the greatest tragedies in human history.
And the churches also are being swept over by the notion that physical food must have the first place in our aims, and then comes the appropriation of the spiritual things. As a result, many churches are nothing more than social centers.
The further churches and men depart from Christ, the more confused their notions become, regarding those things that are of true value to the Christian life. Therefore, it is of great importance for us to attain the right understanding of Jesus Christ himself, if we want to understand the path of life that he invites his followers to walk in. We must first get to know him, to understand his teaching.
True Christianity
Once a stranger appeared at the door of a farmhouse and when he knocked the owner came there. The stranger asked: “Does Jesus Christ live here?” The woman who owned the farm looked carefully at the man and noticed that this is a well-dressed gentleman with a proper and serious demeanor. The woman did not know what to tell him, and the seconds became minutes when he asked again: “Does Jesus Christ live here?” Since he did not receive an answer, he bowed his head and silently went away, then he went to his car and left
The woman was utterly confused and ashamed at the same time that her astonishment had deprived her of the ability to answer. She ran to her husband who was working in the field and told him of the stranger and his question.
Her husband told her: “Mary, didn’t you tell him that we help much for the good condition of the church treasury, that we have prayer before meals, that we go to church, and that we have subscribed to the church newspaper? Did you tell him that you are the secretary of the church’s charitable society and that I am a member of the church council?”
The difference
The woman answered: “No, he did not ask me for such things, John. He wanted to know if Jesus lives here, and I think that this is a totally different thing.”
And it is truly something completely different. Two things that are so distinct from each other: whether Christ is living in me or whether I do a set of activities. Only in the face of Jesus, we find our only hope for eternal salvation. He says: “I am the light of the world.” John 8:12.
“I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.” John 6:35. “Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.” Matt. 10:32.
Therefore, true religion is to have a personal relationship with one person – Jesus Christ. Whoever does not have this saving, living relationship with Christ does not have true religion, and he is “having no hope, and without God in the world…” (Eph. 2:12).