Evangelical vs Pentecostal

There is only one God.

He has only one son, Jesus Christ who died for us so we might come to God.

There is only one Holy Spirit who came to be with us after Jesus rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven.

There is only one Bible but it was not written in English. There are now about fifty different translations of the Bible into English, each a little different from the rest.

There are many churches in many different denominations and they all have their own version of what true Christianity should look like. There are many conflicts between different denominations. So how are we to determine what is correct. Here is a story that should shed some light on the situation:

Before the communists took over in China, there were a few missionaries there who led some Chinese to Jesus. After the Communists took over, these followers of Jesus had to go practice their faith in secret. They had almost no Bibles. There were no churches other than a small number that were controlled by the state. Even so, the message of Jesus spread dramatically and large numbers of people became followers of Jesus. These followers of Jesus felt they were missing much. They longed for the day when China opened up to the world so they could get what they were missing. Once China did open up, people from many western churches went to China. Initially they were well accepted but after a time they realised that they were actually in a better relationship with Jesus before the western churches arrived. The churches were then rejected but the number of followers of Jesus has continued to grow.

The God we serve is living and active and all powerful. That is why so many were able to come to Jesus in China without any help from western churches and almost no Bibles. God loves everyone and will do all He can to see that people who sincerely come to Him actually grow in their relationship with Jesus. The Holy Spirit will guide us and teach us if we allow Him to.

I have seen genuine followers of Jesus in every church I have visited. Unfortunately, in many churches, there are people have not accepted Jesus as Lord or saviour and are clearly do not belong to Jesus. There are also those who have accepted Jesus as saviour but have not made Him their Lord - they have not repented. Such people think they are saved but they do not follow Jesus The Holy Spirit can do no work in their lives because they just don't want to change anything. In China and during the first 3 centuries after Jesus was on Earth, Christianity being illegal resulted in only those who were serious about Jesus identifying as believers. There were no Sunday only Christians.

Recently, I have seen many messages on the Internet 'warning' people about fake churches. While there are fake churches out there, these messages are mostly aimed at churches that seem to have many genuine followers of Jesus. The only genuine church they recognise is their own. We are told that in the last days, many will rise up against God's people. What is truly sad is to see people rising up within the church and attacking other churches.

Evangelicals must stop calling all Pentecostals evil.

Pentecostals must recognise that there are genuine believers in Evangelical churches.

There is a simple solution. If churches are made illegal in first world countries then only genuine followers of Jesus will be Christians. If the churches do not get back to preaching genuine Christianity instead of attacking each other, then that is what will happen. There are some churches that are already doing the right thing but they are in the minority.