There are plenty of religions that can help you live a little better. If you want to try it yourself, follow Mohammed, Buddha, or a new-age guru who presents himself today in so many attractive and seemingly innocent forms. But they all died, without ever being assured of peace with God.
If you want to live in doubt, in hopeless anticipation of whether you will ever be good enough for God, then seek those who call you to look within yourself. But know that you cannot do it on your own and you will always disappoint yourself. It is never enough. No religion or Instagram coach can redeem you from your sinful heart from which all sin comes forth. They can embellish it, numb it, or conceal it, but they cannot redeem you from your guilty heart.
Jesus Christ is the only one who displayed God in perfect balance. His perfect righteousness and His complete love become visible in Him. And those two together reveal something that no other religion or life coach knows. Righteous grace.
Only by punishing our sins in Jesus -- when He had to endure God's abandonment on the cross -- can God justly forgive us. Allah forgives, but brings no justice for those who were treated unjustly. Your life coach can urge you to forgive yourself and move on, but that does not make right what happened. The damage remains.
But our God makes everything right and forgives, in Jesus. No one is like Him. Get to know Him and follow Him!
Jesus then said to the twelve (disciples): Do you also want to go away? Simon Peter then answered Him: Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. And we have believed and have come to know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. (John 6:68)
He offers you eternal life and He proved His words by rising from the dead. Cling to that Gospel and to no other word (1 Corinthians 15:1-2)
Follow Him, who conquered death!
