Today is a special day for anyone who deals in Benjamins: hundred dollar bills, that is. A newly designed model was put into circulation today, since too many counterfeiters have figured out how to make the old ones.

The Feds are bragging that this bill with a blue, 3-D security ribbon will “make it easier for the public to authenticate, but more difficult for counterfeiters to replicate.” Apparently the blue ribbon is made of thousands of tiny lenses magnifying objects beneath them, causing an illusion of movement. Sounds complicated. And foolproof.

They were so foolproof, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing had trouble making them at first. The Benjamins have other new security features, too, and surely Ben Franklin would be proud. Nevertheless, counterfeiters have probably already begun trying to duplicate the new bills.

Counterfeiting was a problem 2000 years ago, too, not with bogus money but with something far more important: counterfeit religious faith. Scripture warns us to be on the lookout for fakes:“There were false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them.” (2 Peter 2:1)

Just like today’s counterfeit money-makers, false teachers will do their sinister work in secret, substituting “destructive heresies” for God’s truth. Although getting tricked into accepting counterfeit Benjamins causes financial loss, believing false heresy does something far worse, leading us to base our lives on lies.

None of us want to put our trust in an untrustworthy religion or, worse yet, an untrustworthy god. The trouble is, counterfeits always look pretty good on first inspection.

Our family visited the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington DC a few years ago. We watched money being created on an automated assembly line from behind a glass partition much like watching a car move through a car wash. What appeared to be white paper “pages” about a yard square were stamped with the familiar green ink, transforming them into dollar bills. Afterwards they were flipped, printed in black on the reverse side, and cut into bills. It looked like anyone could do it.

But at the end of the line, the bills were authenticated, inspected to be sure the engraving was legitimate and the printing was done on the correct linen/cotton paper. But who inspects our religion? How do we know we’re not being duped?

The Bible tells us how.

We’re to believe only in a Gospel that puts forth the name of Jesus Christ as the God who came to earth in man-flesh and sacrificed his life for ours. When we hear that, we know we’ve found the real deal.

And Jesus Christ will never need a 3-D security ribbon to authenticate him.

“This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God.” (1 John 4:1-3)