Easy Promises?

We give a lot of easy promises to others while trying to evangelize to them, we say they will start to experience an abundant life once they become Christians.
And they are bewildered.
Because we don't tell them what Christianity is really about; or perhaps the reason we don't tell them what our religion is about is because we ourselves are not very well aware of it?
So people from other religious backgrounds might tend to bring in their ideas formed while in their original religion.
When I first became acquainted with Christianity, the religion in my mind was like a list of DOs and DON'Ts; nothing personally intimate was present, and because I was convinced the intellectual stuff the Bible contained was all correct and accurate, I needed to do things I was supposed to do, and to avoid things I was told to shun away from.
I thought, now it's time for me also to experience the abundant life promised.
But no, nothing joyful happened, my religious life became more miserable.
John 17:25-26
O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.
John 8
38 I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do that which ye have seen with your father.
41-42 Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God. Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.
44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
Yahshua here is not just talking about atheism or paganism, I actually believe He was talking about primarily Jewish people. Atheism, though has been existing throughout the history, but it had always been quite a minority until the French Revolution. And Yashua spent most of His life in Israel, lived among Jewish people.
Over and over again, Yahshua rebuked the religious leaders in Judaism, but not so much about the pagans.
In that day and age, wasn't Israel the nation closest to the one true God? They had the Tanakh, they had prophets, they had the Torah, the 10 Commandments, it was like they were all doing the right things, so were not they supposed to be given compliments?
Not so.
They might have known which God they were worshipping, or what was in the 10 Commandments.
So why did Yahshua say they were doing the deeds of the devil?
I think, it was because the people thought they were worshipping the one true God, but because their heart was darkened, and they did not have a right picture of God, for the mean things they were doing, they thought they were doing a service for God, they were doing the right things, and that God loved them doing the same things.
They were very religious, just like the parable Yahshua gave of 2 men praying, the self-righteous man was keeping all the laws, paying 1/10 of everything, fasting regularly, and other religious regulations. He thought God must have loved what He was doing; but Yahshua said, the other sinner asking for God's mercy was more favorable in the eyes of God.
In fact, being religious but not loving, not having love in one's heart for God and other people can be really dangerous, because that makes one really mean.
In Exodus Exodus 19:8, 20:19
And all the people answered together, and said, All that Yahweh hath spoken we will do...

And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die.


These people were saying, we will do everything God says, but we don't want to hear Him speaking. We want to have a distant relationship with Him that is not a relationship at all.
This was later proven a recipe for disaster. It was this attitude, they were focused so much on doing doing doing the right things, avoiding the wrong things.
And look at their record in the Bible how they departed from God repeatedly. But in fact, I tend to say, they were not enjoying the time, the fellowship with God in the first place.
Shouldn't that tell us something, a list of things to do and not to do do not bring us closer to God.

"Ye search the Scriptures, because, ye, think, by them, to have, life age-abiding; and, those Scriptures , are they which bear witness concerning me:"


The people thought they could find eternal life in the Scriptures, but Yahshua told them, the Bible was actually not about eternal life, but it was concerning Himself, and only He can give us eternal life.