What is Christianity? Who qualifies as a Christian? Christianity is Christ! First, to be a Christian you must believe in the gospel of Christ. Jesus Christ came down from heaven, took on flesh, and died on the cross for the sins of all men, past, present and future. Jesus was born, led a sinless life, had his ministry, was crucified, buried, and rose from the dead on the third day before ascending back to heaven where he sits at the right hand of God. Jesus is God. Even Satan and the demons believe this. Second, all Christians must accept Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior. Savior means we have faith that Jesus has forgiven our sins (saved us from hell) by giving us eternal life in heaven in his presence. Lord means Jesus is our master and we are slaves of Christ. As bond servants and disciples of Christ we are commanded to obey the commands of God as spelled out in His Word, our Holy Bible.
Anyone who accepts God’s grace unto salvation may inherit eternal life but if they don’t also obey the commands of God in their lives then Jesus is not really their Lord and they’ll be on spiritual milk all their lives and ineffectual as servants of God. They were just paying lip service to God when they called Jesus Lord and either had no intention of being obedient to God in the first place , or if they did intend to be obedient to God they had it beaten out of them by the traditions of men. During the last 1500 years of Christianity the Roman Catholic church has become more and more corrupt. Instead of following the sacred Scriptures they exalted church doctrine and traditions established by men over God’s Word. The church declared Pope’s to be sinless and without error in deciding matters of faith instead of looking to God’s Word for guidance.
The Roman Catholic church declared the only way to heaven was as a member of the church and not by faith alone. Free passes to heaven were given in exchange for sums of money (indulgences) and the church became fabulously wealthy. Wanting to hold onto their power and wealth the leaders of the church created sacraments to keep the faithful in bondage to the church. Tired of these church abuses, Martin Luther ushered in the Protestant reformation in 1517 because he believed salvation was by faith alone and not something to be decided by the church. The church required continuous monetary contributions and other good works in order to be allowed into heaven and Luther rejected that as an abuse of church power. These “protesters” were persecuted by the church for years as heretics before they were finally accepted as part of the body of Christ. Protestants were and always will be a threat to the power of the Roman Catholic church over the lives of the uneducated common man.
Witnessing for Christ