What "religion" are you?

Several times in my life I've had to fill out forms - on paper or online - that ask me what "religion" I am.  I can't help but be tempted to write "Non-religious Christian" because I can't stand the concept of religion nor do I practice a religion.

Now how's that for a contradiction in terms!  How can one possibly claim to be a Christian yet also non-religious?  Isn't Christianity a "religion", and therefore to be a Christian means you're "religious?"  'How blasphemous', you might be thinking.  Or is it?

There's a reason why it's called the "Christian faith", because a religion and a faith are two entirely different things.  People who have not put their trust in Jesus Christ to save them wrongly call it a "religion" because they have a false understanding of who God is and how people are supposed to relate to Him.  However, people who have put their trust in Jesus Christ to save them - Christians - rightly call it a "faith".  They have realized that the salvation given to them through this faith is the "gift of God", that it can't be earned by anything you do (Ephesians 2:8-10).  Thus, they have been invited and accepted into a relationship - not a religion - with the one true God through Jesus Christ and Him alone.

I've come to realize that a religion is a man-made system designed to try to please their god (or gods).  It's full of rules and regulations and ordinances, most of which have no origin in the Bible.  It's also not a very fun system to try to follow, because failure to live up to its standards is constant and therefore it's a great cause of demoralization.  All too often, there is a push to get other people "converted" in a vain attempt to please or appease their god(s) and thus feel more important and better about themselves. 

Sadly, many denominations and movements claiming to be Christian are in fact religions far removed from what God intended Christianity to be.  They go by different names:  Catholicism, Anglicanism, Lutheranism, and so forth.  Then there are the cultic movements, like the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons (Latter Day Saints).  God did not invent denominations or movements; rather, He intended Christianity to be a way to personally relate to Him through Jesus Christ and Him alone - no human intervention required.  However, people unwilling to accept His grace extended through Jesus Christ thought they knew better, and viola - the birth of modern religion.

Unfortunately, a lot of the atheism and agnosticism in this world today stem from those who have felt the pressure to convert to a particular religion.  These mindsets are compounded when these people witness the failure of religious followers to live up to religious standards, such as practicing what they preach.  And when these religious followers fail (not if, but when), they assume - or are told by their religious leaders - that their god(s) will fail to love them.

How the Bible paints a different picture!  If only these people would look past man-made religion and instead to the Bible where they can be told not only of the reality of the one true God, but also His amazing love for them, available without a single religious act on their part!

Here's what the Bible has to say about the Christian faith:

"There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope at your calling; one Lord [that is, Jesus], one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all."  (Ephesians 4:4-5)

What this passage implies is that the "one" Christian faith is therefore the only faith that exists.  It is one of those passages that is very exclusive, the kind that annoys and even greatly angers those outside the Christian faith.  In other words, it implies that there is no Muslim "faith", or Buddhist "faith", or Hindu "faith" and so on.  In reality, these are all religions:  the "one God" is revealed only in the Bible and in no other bodies of scripture, and therefore they are all worshipping false gods.  Also, they all have strict, man-made standards that have created a schizophrenic god or gods who can snap and go crazy on their followers at any moment and, worst of all, deny them passage to eternal paradise.

The appeal of Christianity is so much greater:

"Come to Me [Jesus], all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."  (Matthew 11:28, emphasis added)

"Everyone the Father [God] gives Me [Jesus] will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will never cast out." (John 6:37, emphasis added)

"... [God] is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance." (2 Peter 3:9, emphasis added)

"For God loved the world in this way:  He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16, emphasis added)

"For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God's gift - not from works [religious effort] so that no one can boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9, emphasis added)

I don't know about you, but I much prefer the "one" true faith that accepts everyone - people of all races and colors and, yes, all religious backgrounds - and doesn't require us to be cleaned up and perfect before approaching the "one" true God and humbly and sincerely asking for His mercy to forgive and cleanse and save us.  How about you?

Why don't people believe? Part I

There are many reasons why people don't believe in God, specifically in Jesus (who claimed to be the Son of God and the only mediator between man and God, or the only "way" for us to come to God).

One huge reason why people don't believe in God (or Jesus) is addressed by Jesus Himself while answering the inquiries of a man named Nicodemus, one of the top religious leaders of His day who came secretly to visit Jesus one night:

"Anyone who believes in Him [Jesus] is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the One and Only Son of God [Jesus].

This, then, is the judgment: the light [good news, or "gospel" of Jesus] has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. For everyone who practices wicked things hates the light and avoids it, so that his deeds may not be exposed."

When I first came upon this passage in the New Testament of the Bible, in the book of John chapter 3, versus 18-20 (John 3: 18-20) after I had decided to become a believer in Jesus Christ, it explained to me the main hang-up that I had had with God before I came to believe.

Before I wanted anything to do with God, I completely ignored anything to do with God. This is because I knew that if God did exist, then I for sure was doing things He didn't like and I didn't want to face His wrath and judgment. So I thought that ignoring God was the best way to deal with this. If there was a heaven and hell, I reasoned, I would try to explain to Him at the "Pearly Gates" all the good things I did while alive so that He might cut me some slack and let me live a peaceful eternity up there in heaven.

I didn't realize at the time that only the forgiveness of Jesus would get me there, not my pathetic attempts at being good! I also didn't realize that only perfection gets one into heaven, and that Jesus becomes our perfection for us - our representative before God - only once we ask Jesus to forgive us for all the things we've done to displease God (our "sins").

Besides not wanting to face God and be accountable to Him for what I did, I enjoyed the things I was doing: the pornography, the relationships with different women, swearing in ways that would make a trucker look like a saint, getting drunk, and so on. If I allowed God into my life, I reasoned, then I wouldn't be able to do any of these things and life wouldn't be "fun" any more. I even went so far as to assume that believing in God (which I wrongly equated to "being religious") would mean becoming and hanging-out with Ned Flanders-types around a campfire and singing Kumbuyah.

Basically, at that point in my life, I was fulfilling scripture, I was confirming and validating the words of the Bible. I loved darkness rather than the light because my deeds were evil. They weren't evil in terms of modern human standards, but they were evil in the eyes of a perfect God! I hated what God had to offer me through Jesus and therefore avoided it because I didn't want the things I did to have to be dealt with and changed. Only now can I look back on this mindset and realize how closed-minded and naive I was, forming stereotypes and assuming things about God that were not true.

But a funny thing happened while I was trying to avoid God and live life my way. I started reading some self-help books because I knew there were things wrong with my life, but I didn't know how else to go about changing them. I was unhappy and unsatisfied, and there was something missing that I couldn't find in all my pursuits because the pleasure was always so short-lived and empty feeling. There was no long-lasting peace or joy that came out of these things. So I decided that these books had the answer, and I started reading classics like "How to Win Friends and Influence People" because, for example, I thought more friends and success would give me the peace and joy I was missing.

As I got into more books, I remember one time reading one that mentioned the word "God" on the second page of the book. I was so enraged that this author was trying to bring God into the mix when all I wanted to learn about was success and wealth that I returned the book! If you've read this blog or just this post so far and think that I've always been a believer, I can assure you that few who have ever lived were more violently opposed to anyone trying to tell me about God than I was!

Anyhow, as I delved deeper into my self-help journey, I came to realize (with much resentment at first) that all success principles have their origin in the Bible. I was surprised by this because I thought the Bible was only about God's wrath and judgement, but here I was being exposed to a loving God that actually wants the best for us and wants us reconciled to Him so that we can have an eternal relationship with Him and not apart from Him in the "other place".

Over time, I began to open myself up more to God and what the Bible had to say. I began to think deeply about my assumptions about the origins of life, for example, and while looking at my hand and it's intricate musculo-skeletal motions began to wonder how something so complex and precise could have possibly arisen from blind, random evolutionary processes apart from a creative force like that of God. I thought about the human creative design poured into things like a watch or a camera, things far less complicated than the human hand, and realized that it was foolish to assume that the hand was not created by something far more powerful than the human mind.

But the kicker for me was the realization that I had to stop always assuming that the Bible was wrong or only half-true and instead realize that perhaps I was wrong. I did not want to take the chance of assuming that hell wasn’t real only to end up there someday. If I did, it would be a mistake that I would have to live with for an eternity with no way out. I did not want the Bible to prove me wrong after it was too late.

So what really happened after I finally broke down and decided to come to God through Jesus and ask to be forgiven for all the things that I had done to displease Him (my "sins")? Did my life suddenly fall apart as God said "Aha!!" and began to punish me for all the sexual immorality and drunkenness I had committed? Did I get the sudden urge to give away all of my possessions and move to the tropical rain-forest and preach the Gospel to a cannibalistic tribe while living a life of celibacy and self-denial?

Actually, much the opposite happened. I felt a sense of release and forgiveness and peace unlike anything I had ever experienced. I sensed a great love from God, not a feeling of guilt and condemnation. Whenever I went back to those habits that had caused those temporary feelings of happiness before, I instead felt a great sense of meaninglessness and emptiness and I would actually get depressed. But whenever I would pray or flip open the Bible - which actually made sense to me now that God's spirit (the Holy Spirit) was living inside of me, teaching me how to interpret the Bible - that sense of forgiveness and peace and love would return.

The neatest part to this story, however, is how God eventually replaced my old habits with new ones that give me far more satisfaction and happiness! I no longer feel the urge to engage in any of the sexual sins (marital sex is not a sin, by the way!) or the drunkenness that I used to want so much.

So this was a much longer version than I had anticipated about explaining why people don't believe, because I also wanted to explain what wonderful good can happen when a person decides to get over the objection or stumbling block to their disbelief. In other posts, I will discuss other major reasons why people don't believe in God.