On the OUTSIDE, Christians and Mormons Are SIMILAR.
On any given Sunday…
…Christians and Mormons get up in the morning and put on their Sunday best.
…Mormons and Christians go to church buildings to worship.
…Christians and Mormons enjoy holy music.
…Mormons and Christians practice rituals like tithing, baptism, and communion.
For the rest of the week…
…They work hard for the cause of Jesus Christ.
…They try to be a good witness in their community.
…They make a point to live exemplary lives that are morally pure.
…They endeavor to raise solid families.
…They uphold traditional values.
But It’s What’s INSIDE that matters to God.
God is more concerned by what is on our inside than by what we look like on our outside.
God shows us in His word, the Bible, that He is more concerned about what we believe in our heart than what we attempt to do with our hands and feet.
Moses told us to “love the LORD your God with all your heart” (Deut 6:5).
Joshua reminded us to “incline your heart to the LORD God” (Josh 24:23).
Samuel said, “the LORD has sought for Himself a man after His own heart” (1 Sam 13:14).
David confessed his sin to God and pleaded with God to “create in me a clean heart” (Psalm 51:10).
Jeremiah called the people to return to God “with their whole heart” (Jer 24:7).
Jesus called for a blessing on the “pure in heart” (Matt 5:8).
Paul reminded us that “with the heart one believes unto righteousness” (Rom 10:10).
If God is more concerned about what is in our heart than with what we do,
how can we cleanse our heart to be pleasing to God?
Herein Lies A Problem. We Cannot Cleanse Our HEART!
We cannot cleanse our heart from the outside in.
We cannot do good works or righteous deeds and expect our heart to soak them up and become holy.
For one thing, we are not righteous.
Romans 3:9 and following tells us that regardless of our heritage, “there is none righteous, no, not one.”
And even if we were righteous, how would our righteousness compare to God’s?
In short, “all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags” (Is 64:6).
Cleansing our heart is something that we cannot do ourselves. We need God to do this for us. To start this process, we must honestly expose the wickedness of our heart to God. And let’s face it, we have all sinned against a perfect and holy God and let wickedness corrupt our heart.
Once again, the Bible says that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23).
And Here Is The GOOD NEWS.
God Wants To Cleanse Your HEART!
Once you have opened up your heart to God, let Him do the rest. Even though we have sinned and deserve the punishment of death, God offers us life (Rom 6:23). He does this because He loves us.
The Bible says, “But God demonstrates His love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8).
Imagine that. Even though we have a wicked heart, God loves us so much that He sent Jesus, His only begotten son, to pay the penalty for our sins and cleanse our hearts by dying on the cross in our place. Our hearts can be cleansed with Jesus’ righteousness, as it is written, “so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom 5:21).
When we trust God to cleanse our heart, we call this being forgiven, redeemed, justified, born again, or saved.
So, how then do we get saved?
Do we have to go to a church or temple? NO!
Do we need a special baptism or way to dress? NO!
Do we have to do good works to merit salvation? NO!
These are all things we do on the outside.
You Must BELIEVE!
Our only requirement to be saved is to have faith inside our hearts, which means believe.
The Bible makes this clear.
“The just shall live by faith” (Rom 1:17).
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).
“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Eph 2:8).
If you truly believe that Jesus is God and that He sacrificed Himself and died on the cross to forgive you of your sins and to cleanse your heart, confess Jesus as your Savior today!
As it is written, “for with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Rom 10:10).
Believe and confess and God will be pleased forever with the righteousness of Jesus inside your heart!
