Question: In our modern age "Christian" is a vague and undefined word. Everyone has his own opinion as to how a person can be saved. I would appreciate your insight about who the real Christians are.

Answer: I agree wholeheartedly with your comment about the abuse of the word "Christian". I'm reminded of Jesus' warning: "Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven" (Matthew 7:21).

Broadly speaking, there are two major areas where one can go wrong, namely, in the understanding of the Gospel, and secondly, in the experience of the same Gospel.

Satan has so clouded the truth of the Gospel that many individual Christians and churches do not even have a correct intellectual understanding on God's message of salvation. They may speak of grace and faith, but they really depend on their works and morality as a means of salvation. Like the Jews of old, "they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God" (Romans 10:3). Christianity is not merely a moral system of religion. Before anything else, Christians admit their sin and inability, and by grace they rely completely by faith in Christ to be made right with God.

On the other hand, there are those who may be experts in Christian theology, and can give you a brilliant lecture on justification by faith alone, and yet know nothing experientially of the grace and power of God in their own hearts. Their hypocrisy and delusion will be exposed in the Day of the Lord: "I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!" (Matthew 7:23).

Let us be careful not to fall into either one of these deadly traps!