Someone once wisely said: “I left the rituals of religion for a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.”
Authentic Christianity is NOT a religion — religion is ritual without reality! Christianity is a personal relationship with the only living God, through faith in Christ Jesus (John 14:6; Acts 4:12).
Jesus condemned religion and religious people. Read Christ’s harsh words for yourself, in the following verses: Matthew 23: 23-38; Mark 12: 38-40; Luke 20: 45-47.
RELIGION HAS MANY FACES – Religion seems so right.
- All religions of the world are man’s presumptuous attempt to gain the approval and attention of a deity. Only Jesus Christ is worthy of divine approval and praise.
- Religion may best be defined as human good (finite self-righteousness) which is mankind working for salvation and the applause of men and of God — human good and religious ritual gratifies the ego and eases the conscience.
- God rejected human good (man’s own effort) in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3: 7, 21).
- Religious, egotistical hypocrites, not the Romans, crucified Christ!
- Religion is Satan’s most successful counterfeit to God’s Grace Plan.
- Religious pride is arrogance. Pride blinds men of the gospel of Grace — it is a stumbling block to self-righteous hypocritical people who actually believe God is impressed with them. How arrogant, self-righteous, legalistic and illogical it is, that a finite human being can think: “I am worthy of the infinite.”
- Self-righteous people are proud of their ‘house of cards.’ The Ten Commandments become a check card by which they can keep track of their human good – self-righteousness, while at the same time feeding their pride and inflating their ego like a hot-air balloon.
Religious do-gooders (for salvation) cannot meet their own self-appointed standards for salvation (Romans 3:23), so God provided salvation. Have you accepted or rejected God’s gift-offer of everlasting life through Jesus Christ (John 3:15-18; 3:36)?
Only God is good. No one else is good.
If most people think they are good, then they do not see the need for a Savior. How good is good enough?
Salvation was provided by God because it was necessary. God can only accept perfect because He is perfect. We cannot be perfect, not ever. There is no “good enough” apart from Christ’s own perfection. No human will ever match that. No human could. No matter how much we gain or accomplish, we are still short of God’s perfection.
Faith doesn’t earn salvation. Christ earned (paid for) our salvation. Faith receives salvation and imputed righteousness. Salvation means “deliverance.” By faith our sins are forgiven and from our deliverance comes appreciation and respect for Savior and Lord. Our works, our visible works, proves our faith in Christ’s cross-work. Our experiential physical deliverance takes place when the soul and spirit are called out and up at physical death, or the rapture of the body of Christ. This calling up/out is our ultimate deliverance into God’s presence.
Until the Rapture occurs, or we are taken from this life and delivered into the presence of the Lord, we remain to witness and represent Christ as His ambassadors during His absence from earth.
Happy Studying in Fields of Grace