RELIGIONS THAT DO NOT FOLLOW JESUS CHRIST
Because most people who say they are Christians are not obeying Christ, you could say that this study is about ALL religions, because there is no religion in the world today that is obeying Jesus Christ. (Luke 13:26-27)
There are some things that are true for all religions. For one thing, they each say that they are better than the other religions. This is why they fight with each other. But the truth is that not one of them is teaching people to obey the teachings of Jesus. Jesus said that all people can and should live by faith in God, and work for love (not for money). This is what makes the teachings of Jesus different from the teachings of every religion in the world. (Matthew 6:31-33) He is the only one who can promise that God will feed all of his followers, because he is God's Son.
But we need to understand that Jesus was not trying to make a new religion. He did not need to say bad things about other religions. (Luke 9:50, Matthew 12:50) He was a Jew, and he believed that the Jewish religion said many good things. (John 4:19-24) There are many good things about other religions too. And this is true of the "Christian" religions. Religions that say they are "Christian" have the teachings of Jesus in their Bibles. This is good. The one big problem is that they do not obey many of the teachings of Jesus. This is bad.
Other religions teach people to believe in God and to love other people as the "Christian" religions do. Most religions teach that greed is wrong, and that people should not believe physical things will make them happy. The Muslim religion started with a fight against people loving idols. And the Hindu religion teaches that it is good for young men to leave their families and all that they have, so that they can live a life of faith and love. From this we see that there is much in other religions that is close to what Jesus was saying. (Romans 2:14-15)
When a religion teaches that Jesus Christ said something that he did not teach, we must tell peple that this is wrong. But we do not need to say bad things about most of the things religions teach. It is better to talk about the good things and to say nothing about the other teachings. Good people in these religions will follow the truth in their religion, but they will quickly stop following the false teachings if and when they find something better. If we teach the truth and say nothing about the false teachings, good people will listen to us, and bad leaders will not be able to fight against us.
Remember, we are not trying to take people out of one religion and put them into another one. We are trying to encourage them to have more of the love and faith that good people (in any religion) want to have. The bigger picture of truth that we have will free them from all that is false. (John 8:31-32) People follow Jesus when they live the way that he said we should live. (John 15:10) If we teach the things that Jesus was teaching, and people follow us, they are following Jesus. (John 13:20) Jesus did not tell us to teach that he is God, or that he is the Jewish Messiah. (Mark 8:30) He did not tell us to talk about miracles. (Mark 7:36) He said that good people will help HIM when they help poor people. Some good people will not even KNOW that they are helping Jesus, but he will still reward them because they helped people who were in need. (Matthew 25:34-40) We will say it again: We do not need to fight against any religion. But if we teach the truth, we know that many religions will fight against us. When this happens, try to remember that good people will know that what we are saying is true, and they will not believe what the others say against us. (Mark 12:37b)
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