Beware religious scams

Ever since the Devil first tricked humans into disobeying God, the world has been filled with imitation religion and spirituality. Some of them are bizarre, like folks waiting for aliens to come get them, and some are so close to the "authorized" version that it's easy for people to be confused. Of course, from a biblical view, there's only one truly "authorized" religion, and that's the one revealed personally by God, first through the prophets of Israel and finally through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. (Hebrews 1:1-3)

And the imitations and clones and other variations of real Christianity have been marketed by Satan ever since Jesus rose from the dead and sent His apostles into the world with the Gospel. The complete list of variants would be too numerous for this space, but just consider some current imitations that take up space in our news reports.

We have pedophiles masquerading as caring priests, hateful demonstrators pretending they're really standing up for God's Law. We see "preachers" enriching themselves by raking in the offerings of the gullible. And, in today's news we see a "Christian" militia group, claiming to prepare for Antichrist by arming themselves for an assault on the American government.

And the deadliest imitations are all the "fake Jesus" ideas, which Satan uses for those willing to believe that a man called Jesus really lived. But from that point the similarity between the Jesus of the Bible and the Jesus of men's imaginations end. Some say He never claimed to be the Son of God - the Church made that up. Some say He didn't really die on the cross. Some say He died but didn't rise again. Some say He rose, and now we can be just like Him as a powerful, divine being.

Satan, like the scam artists waiting to sell you a fake Rolex or an imitation something else, is quite content with people using the name "Jesus", as long as it isn't the genuine article: the One who is God's only divine Son, equal with the Father, who is God's only atonement for sin, who is the Way, Truth and Life, and the only hope for eternal life by His resurrection from the dead.

Accept no substitutes! It may not be "politically correct", but if Jesus isn't the Way, then there's no way.