How many people has the Catholic Church murdered through the centuries? And they think they are of Christ when they are doing this.

As for the Protestants: Germany is filled with Lutheran people. These same Lutherans tried to annihilate the Jewish race. And these are Christians? These are representatives of the Lord Jesus Christ who are murdering the Lord's chosen people?

There are many wonderful Muslim people, kind, generous, gentle human beings. But their religious system murders people they regard as infidels.

There is very little relationship between membership in a Christian church and the Divine salvation.

Neither Judaism nor Christianity is designed to be a religion. Both are revelations of the God of Heaven. God creates salvation. Men create religion.

The Christian religion stresses accepting Christ so we can go to Heaven. The Muslim religion, I understand, sometimes stresses murdering infidels in order to get to Heaven. I do not know how the Jews get to Heaven because there is no emphasis in the Old Testament about going to Heaven.

One thing I do know: the New Testament does not emphasize going to Heaven. The emphasis is on bearing fruit, the fruit which is the moral image of Jesus Christ: righteous behavior, holiness of personality, and stern obedience to God. This is what God is looking for and usually doesn't get. He doesn't get it because the New Testament is not being preached. What is preached is our traditions about mansions in Heaven.

If we do not bear the fruit of Christ's likeness we stand in scriptural danger of being cut from the Vine, from Christ. If the tree does not bear fruit the Farmer will dig it out of the orchard. Without the fruit of the Spirit there is no salvation, no eternal life, no Kingdom of God.

All our religious activities profit us absolutely nothing if we do not become a new moral creation in Christ, a new creation that is being demonstrated in our thoughts, our words, and our behavior.

Obviously the record of the two thousand years of the Christian Era has been one of religion, not usually of transformed people who revealed Christ in their personalities. There have been, as we know, notable exceptions to this.

Today the Christian emphasis is on "church growth." By "church growth" we mean growth in the numbers in attendance or the numbers who "make a decision for Christ."

We ought to be emphasizing the growth of Christ in the people. We take it for granted that once people make a decision for Christ they will grow. But they usually do not. They do not grow because we do not emphasize growth. We don't even know what growth is, in many instances. The idea is more people, more people, more people.

To be continued.