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Many people in today’s American Church are saying that all we need is Jesus and to love people, and that doctrine is divisive and only offends the lost.
But what did Paul say about doctrine?

Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.
1 Timothy 4:16 (NIV)

Why did Paul say that Doctrine will save? Only Jesus can save by the work He finished on the cross, which Paul taught. But if you don’t have right doctrine, which is right thinking about God, you are instead creating your own version of God and worship a God of your own liking. Many want the salvation that Jesus freely offers but don’t want the Lordship of Jesus.

“from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,”
2 Ti 3:15–16 (NIV)

When we are studying the Old Testament Scripture and New Testament Scripture which Teachings of Jesus and the Apostles, if the Doctrine of Jesus as he taught and also taught by his Apostles don’t change our thinking, rebuke us, make us uncomfortable, and bring a greater desire for righteous and holiness, your must likely doing it wrong, or not studying scripture at all.

Just remember scripture and doctrine, which is right thinking about God as taught by Jesus and his apostles, are to stand in Judgment of our lives and bring about changes in our actions and thinking, not for us to judge scripture and doctrine and change them according to our desires.

For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say No to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed Hope the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.
Titus 2:11-14 (NIV)

There is so much confusion in our present time. People are confused about all kinds of things, and one major thing the Church can help make clear is what is grace, and what is salvation.

Stop saying that you are saved by grace if you are living under the control of the same sins as before you claimed you were saved. You should instead say you are saved by mercy, which is not a real salvation.

If you were truly saved by grace, which causes you to be born again, you would be living free of the control of sin. Grace by definition is the power through God to do the will of God. Truth is, if you are not born again, there’s a very good chance you are not “saved.” You are only living a life that is frustrating and testing the mercy of God.

Jesus’ work on the Cross deserves more than a weak and powerless grace teaching from the Church. Jesus died to redeemed and purify us.  Redemption and purification must be taught as connected and happening together.

Even though the lost and rebellious against God only like the redemption and not the purification part, both must be preached and taught, otherwise the Church is preaching only a half truth, which is a false Gospel of grace.

If you claim to be “saved by grace” the by Paul’s definition, you should be “eager to do what is good.” Not perfect, but at least eager. If there is no eager desire for good, there is no redemption, and that means no salvation.

How very sad for someone to believe they are saved, to live and die under the control of sin, only to find out on Judgment Day they were never redeemed.

Preach the truth, proclaim the Gospel and interceded with prayer for the lost.

There is a verse in Proverbs that has always stuck out to me when friends played jokes and pranked each other.  Every year on April 1st it is almost always a guarantee that somebody’s feelings are going to get hurt somehow at sometime during that day.  As I watched the mayhem that followed as friends tried to smooth over hurt feelings, Proverbs 26:18-19 would come to mind.

Proverbs 26:18-19 (NIV) Like a madman shooting firebrands or deadly arrows is a man who deceives his neighbor and says, “I was only joking!”

I have heard it being taught from pulpits that Jesus was a fun guy. They even go so far as to say that Jesus was just one of they guys and must have played pranks on his disciples.

That is a fun picture of Jesus and it even helps sell Jesus like the “My Homeboy” t-shirts. It also helps make the idea of Jesus as Judge a little more tolerable. We can always say to Him in the court of Heaven, “Oh that sin, it wasn’t really sin. I was just joking around, I didn’t mean anything serious!”

But the image of Jesus a jokester, as a man who ‘deceives his neighbor and says ‘I was only joking,’ is not true of his nature, and it was not how Jesus acted towards his disciples in Scripture. To say that Jesus acted in such a way is to malign his character and goes against what is written in the Bible.

Hebrews 6:18 (NIV) God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is IMPOSSIBLE FOR GOD TO LIE, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged.

Titus 1:2 (NIV) a faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which GOD, WHO DOES NOT LIE, promised before the beginning of time,

The truth is that teaching that Jesus is a prankster is a false teaching about who God is. It causes one to ask the question, “Can I trust a God that may be pulling a prank on me?” It lowers a perfect Creator to the level of a sinful and imperfect false god from Olympus.

Matthew 24:24 (NIV) For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect- if that were possible.

It is not the nature of the Father,  Jesus or the Holy Spirit to deceive or pull pranks for his amusement. Hebrews says it is ‘impossible for God to lie.’  To lie is the nature of the “False Christ,” or to say more clearly, the Anti-Christ. To say Jesus did lie, even just as a fun prank, is to attribute the character traits of Satan to Jesus.

John 8:44 (NIV) You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

Was Jesus fun to be around? I would say yes. It was a joy to be in His presence, but He never lied or deceived anyone, even just as a joke.
Did his disciples prank each other? The Bible is silent on that account, but the Bible is very clear that Jesus never deceived anyone as a joke.

So what can we take from the real “prankless” Jesus? How about love your neighbor just as you want to be loved. So I would say, bless you neighbor, friends, and family and don’t prank them. Blessing them may just freak them out even more than the best April Fools prank, and then you may be a little more like Jesus.