When I was a boy, I thought the sole aim and object of the Gospel was to keep from going to hell. A good many other folks observe Christianity from that point of view yet. After awhile, evangelists changed the idea somewhat. They began to teach that the object of being a Christian was not to keep from going to hell, but to go to heaven. Then I began reasoning. I said, "One is just as selfish as the other." The one gets saved to keep from going to hell and the other one gets saved to get to heaven. Both are wholly selfish and neither one is the real purpose of Jesus.
Jesus gave one final reason for men being Christians, and strangely very few people have ever discovered, even from the Word of God, what that real purpose is. . . .
To manifest the righteousness of God is the real reason for a man's desiring to be a Christian -- not to go to heaven when he dies or to keep out of hell, but to reveal the righteousness of God in this world. And then heaven and all our rewards will be the natural result of having lived in unity with God and having revealed His righteousness in this world.
-- John G. Lake
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