People think they know what Christianity is all about. But are their assumptions accurate? Addressing 51 common spiritual questions below, Rick Warren reveals the truth plainly without clouding the issue with religious jargon or rules.*

Questions
1. Why is there evil in the world?
2. Is Jesus really God?
3. Do all religions lead to God?
4. What’s going to happen to those people in the world who’ve never heard about Jesus Christ?
5. What about all the wars that are caused in the name of Christianity?

QUESTION 1: WHY IS THERE EVIL IN THE WORLD?
You know, this is a difficult stumbling block and question for many people. The simplest way to look at this question is to examine God’s nature and his desire for mankind. Look at the logic. God loves us and wants us to love him back. And how could we love him back unless we have the freedom to not love?

God could have made us like robots who do nothing more than say, “I love you. I love you. I love you.” But we’d be forced to do that and that wouldn’t be real love. Love is a choice. And if you have a choice, you have to be able to choose not to love. That in itself is the nature of evil: evil is choosing not to love. So when God gave us the freedom to choose, he gave us not only our greatest blessing, but he also gave us our greatest curse — we can choose to do right or choose to do wrong.

The reason there’s evil in the world is not because of God, but because God gave us the freedom to choose. Now the potential for love outweighs the existence of evil, because you see, evil is only going to exist for a short time, but love is going to go on forever. And all of the suffering and all of the death that we see in the world today are because man has chosen to make wrong choices.

God could have taken our freedom, but he didn’t. I hope you’ll use your freedom to choose God.

QUESTION 2: IS JESUS REALLY GOD?
Well, when you think about it, you only have three options as to who Jesus Christ was. You see, Jesus claimed to be God. He said things like, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.” He claimed to be God many, many times. Now, that means either:

He is who he says he was,
He was the biggest liar in history, or
He was crazy. He was a lunatic on the order of the man who calls himself a fried egg.
I’ve had many friends who said, “I believe Jesus was a good man.” Well, He couldn’t have been a good man and said the things he said. For instance, if I said to you, “I’m Rick Warren and I’m a good teacher and a good husband,” you might say, “Okay, I buy that.” But if I said to you, “I’m Rick Warren and I’m God and I’m the only way to heaven.” Well, you would have to make a decision. You couldn’t say I was a good person because a good person wouldn’t say that. You’d either say, “He is who he says he is, he’s a liar, or he’s crazy.”

Now Jesus didn’t just expect us to just believe him and take him at his word. He said, “I’m going to prove the claim that I am God.” He said, “I’m going to let people kill me on a cross, then let them bury me. I’ll be dead for three days and then I’ll come back to life.” And, of course, that was the event that changed history. The resurrection of Jesus Christ. Every person since then refers to Jesus Christ, whether they believe in him or not. Every time you write a date, A.D. or B.C., what’s the reference point? Jesus Christ. His life was the event that split history.

QUESTION 3: DO ALL RELIGIONS LEAD TO GOD?
Well now, think about the logic of this. Can I go into a phone booth and dial any phone number and get home? No, there’s only one number that’ll get me home. I could be sincere, but I could be sincerely wrong. The truth is, all roads don’t lead to Rome and all religions don’t lead to God.

You see, it all depends on which direction you take. Jesus said this: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). I’m betting my life on the fact that he was right because I figured Jesus knows more about it than I did.

The Bible tells us that on the road to heaven, there are only two directions: toward Christ or away from him. You can accept him or you can reject him, it’s your choice. You can make Jesus the Lord of your life — that means the manager, the CEO, the person in charge of your life — or you can call him a liar, but that’s what the Bible declares.

You know a lot of people sincerely believe that even though they’ve broken God’s rules that they can earn God’s forgiveness by doing good works, by observing the Five Pillars of Islam or the Buddhist Eightfold Path or the Hindu Doctrine of Karma, for example. But I don’t get it. How will doing some good works, that we should have done all our lives, make up for all the countless times we failed?

You see, heaven is a perfect place and that means only perfect people get to go there. If not-perfect people were allowed in, it wouldn’t be perfect anymore. Well I don’t know about you, but I stopped being perfect a long time ago. So God came up with Plan B. He came to earth in human form, Jesus Christ, and he lived a perfect life and now he offers to let us go to heaven on his ticket. And I pray that you will trust Jesus Christ and stop trying to bat a thousand — because you ended up not doing that a long time ago. Accept God’s free ticket through Jesus Christ.

QUESTION 4: WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN TO THOSE PEOPLE IN THE WORLD WHO’VE NEVER HEARD ABOUT JESUS CHRIST?
You may have heard this question put this way: “What about the person living in the jungle somewhere who’s never heard the good news about Jesus Christ? Are you Christians saying that a person won’t go to heaven based solely on where he lives?”

No, we’re not saying that. The Bible tells us that God doesn’t work that way. We understand that God is perfect in his love and perfect in his holiness and he’s perfectly just and fair. Therefore, it’s against God’s nature to be unfair. It’s against God’s nature to hide the ball on salvation or to condemn somebody who’s ignorant of his truth. In fact, the Bible declares that God is loving and patient and not willing that anybody should perish. He wants everybody to come to repentance and to come to know him.

If God is a perfectly loving and righteous God, then he will figure out ways to help people understand him. He somehow reveals the simple truth of the gospel to people throughout the world. You know, I’ve talked to people who were missionaries in Africa who’ve told me that Jesus has revealed himself through nature. When you look at nature you learn that God is organized, that God is creative, that God likes variety. But it’s when we look at Jesus Christ we realize that God is loving.

And as Christians we are called to tell the good news to other people. It’s God’s decision to decide what happens to people who haven’t heard about him. But it is our decision to take that news to as many people as possible. And the Bible says we will be held more responsible because we have heard and we have known that God is love, that God wants a relationship to us and that God will forgive us if we give our lives to Jesus Christ.

So, what do we do about those who haven’t heard? We tell them. First we accept God’s good news and then we tell people about it. Then, we leave the result in the hands of a fair, loving, and just God.

QUESTION 5: WHAT ABOUT ALL THE WARS THAT ARE CAUSED IN THE NAME OF CHRISTIANITY?
Well first, let me say that a lot of things have been done in the name of Christianity that Jesus Christ would totally disavow. Just because someone claims to be a Christian doesn’t necessarily make him a follower of Christ, nor does it make him a representative of Jesus. It’s very, very important to distinguish between the Bible kind of Christianity and the actions that have been taken throughout history by people who claimed to be Christians, but who really didn’t know Jesus.

You see, there’s a difference between religion and a relationship with God. Jesus is not interested in the religion of Christianity. He’s interested in you having a relationship to him. Jesus never said, “I’ve come that you might have religion.” He said, “I came that you might have life and have it more abundantly.”

A lot of people have claimed to be followers of Christ, but they’ve lived their lives contrary to his teaching. We shouldn’t label this group "Christian." But let me say this: have you ever seen a counterfeit dollar? Well, maybe you haven’t, but maybe you’ve heard of them. Why are there counterfeit dollars in the world? Well, I’ll tell you why. Because there are real dollars in the world. If there were no real dollars, there would be no counterfeits. And if you find counterfeit Christianity in the world, it must mean that somewhere there must be the real thing. The point is, we don’t identify Jesus by claiming that all the things that were done in his name were done by him. In fact, Jesus prevented hais own disciples from defending themselves against the enemies when He said, “I want you to turn the other cheek” (Matthew 5:39).

A lot of wars have been done in the name of Christianity that Jesus probably would have disavowed. The real issue is: do you know Jesus Christ? You see, it doesn’t matter so much what has been done by hypocrites or phonies or false followers of Christ. What matters is: do you know the real, true, genuine item? Have you ever turned your life over to Jesus Christ? If you haven’t, I would encourage you to investigate him today.

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