Dear Friend: Searching for the Right Religion

I appreciated your clear explanation of your difficulty in believing, that is, the many sincere people who live by their beliefs but whose beliefs differ from evangelical Christianity and from each other. Your said we cannot all be right, but all of us could be wrong. I have observed the same things about these different kinds of believers and agree with you that we cannot all be right and it’s possible all could be wrong. It is possible that someone could be right, but not more than one.

We agreed, I think, that believing something did not make it true. However, if it is true it should be believed. Rather than spending time comparing the sincere believers with each other, including me, spend your time searching for the truth, but not in the different believers. You can read the scriptures of the different world religions and apply what they say to believe and do. You may stop searching when you find the truth.

The difficulty with many of these texts is that there is no means of knowing you are saved until after you die. There is no promise in the present of both intellectual and experiential assurance of salvation. That is why I suggested reading the New Testament first. You can reject it if you choose to because it promises results now. You will have to wait too long on the others.

To learn the most the fastest, read Luke, John, Acts, and Romans. That gives you two complementary biographies of Jesus, the story of the first Christians, and the New Testament's major book on salvation. Romans caused Martin Luther’s reformation and, two hundred later, the Wesleyan Revival.

There are only two major means of salvation promoted in the world today: 1) what man does to earn or deserve salvation and 2) what God has done to save people who cannot earn or deserve salvation. Some religions say it takes both. However, they are mutually exclusive.

So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. And if by grace, then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace. (Rom. 11:5-6)

Do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing! (Gal. 2:21)

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. (Eph. 2:8-9)

At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:3-7)

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom. 6:23)

There are people in every historic Christian denomination who are saved and people in every historic denomination who are not saved. Those who have been saved have immediate fellowship with each other, and those who are not saved do not have that fellowship, even though they want it.

Your Friend,

Jim Wilson