Fake

In the late 1980s, a German pop group raced to the top of the music charts around the world. Milli Vanilli sold seven million albums and won a Grammy Award for best new artist. The problem was that Milli Vanilli was not Milli Vanilli.

When producer Frank Farian met Rob Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan, he was convinced they could provide him with the “look” he needed to make the music of his group of session musicians attractive to the record-buying public.

Although they appealed to music buyers and concertgoers, no one realized that Pilatus and Morvan never sang, either in the studio or during live appearances. But when they demanded to sing on the next Milli Vanilli album, Farian admitted the ruse to journalists, and the show was over. Milli Vanilli plummeted from fame to infamy.* Fakery is everywhere. In the 1980s, the Getty Center in Los Angeles paid almost $10 million (close to $25 million today) for a kouros, an ancient sculpture of a young Greek male. The statue is no longer on display at the Getty as it is believed to be a fake.† Magazine covers routinely feature electronically enhanced models who have had their teeth whitened and straightened, their necks lengthened, their thighs and hips narrowed, and skin blemishes removed. Not even the models themselves look like their magazine portrayals. But what happens when the fakery extends to the church? The problem is serious enough that Jesus spoke to it when He said, “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). He went on to say, “Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ ” (verses 22, 23).

God is willing to give every believer a truly genuine Christian experience. When Jesus lives His life in you, your experience will be real.

Anything less than a life connected to Christ is less than what God wants for you.