Whoever Believes in the Son Has Life

June 2

In reflecting upon and comparing and contrasting the views of eternity that are held by some of the world’s major religious systems, it seems to a preponderance of people that those held by adherents to Christianity have the best scenario—based upon the fact that Christianity is the largest and fastest growing religion in the world.

One may argue that Islam is growing as rapidly, but in actuality, the growth in Islam is because of the fact that so many more children are born to Moslem parents than to parents of other faiths. When all that is counted are actual converts to a faith, those statistics are staggeringly in the favor of Christianity.

Additionally, many converts to Islam do so because of coercion. Throughout its history, Islam has added to its number through war. Subjected peoples were given the options of converting to Islam, paying a tax imposed upon non-believers, or death. There are still rigorous pressures to be Moslem within the parts of the world under control of Islam. But Christianity, from its inception, has been fueled by the power of love.

The first act of love was that of Christ coming to earth as a man to pay the penalty for man’s sin by His substitutionary death in man’s place (Philippians 2:5-8); and subsequent to that, believers throughout history have put their own lives on the line in order to share the message of Christ’s love and salvation with even those who are hostile to the message.

Why? Because as Jesus said in John 3:36, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life.” Apart from Him, there is the eternal pain of loss. So we share the good news in love and we pray the unbeliever will accept it and become one of us.