Daily in Christ 8/5
August 5
THE COUNTERFEITS
Unless you believe that I am He, you shall die in your sins
In assessing counterfeits to Christianity, no criterion is more important than the Person of Jesus Christ. Paul wrote: "I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough" (2 Corinthians 11:3, 4 NIV ).
Other religions may talk about Jesus, but they present Him in another way than He is presented in Scripture. They may talk about the same historical Jesus, but not about the Son of God, the Alpha and Omega, and the great I AM. Jesus said, "Unless you believe that I am He, you shall die in your sin" (John 8:24). If you believe in Jesus in any other way than how He is presented in the Bible, you will receive an altogether different spirit instead of the Holy Spirit and an altogether different gospel instead of the gospel of grace.
The counterfeit spirits which are at work in the cults and the occult are nothing like the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, "But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He shall glorify Me; for He shall take of Mine, and shall disclose it to you" (John 16:13, 14). The Holy Spirit always leads us back to Christ.
The counterfeit gospel is not a gospel of grace because the blood of bulls and goats will never take away sin, so you are left with a gospel of works. But the real Jesus died for our sins, the Spirit of truth has come, and we are marvelously saved by grace.
Prayer: Lord, I want to be so filled with the knowledge of Your truth that I may quickly recognize and turn from all counterfeits of the gospel.
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