Let’s talk religion.
What is it?
What do people usually mean by this word, “religion?”
Well, generally speaking, a religion will have a set of rules to keep and ceremonies to perform.
Eventually, when you die, an evaluation process occurs. Some higher power in that particular religion weighs your performance.
If you did more good than bad, according to their rules and ceremonies, then you are allowed into that religion’s higher state of happiness…heaven, navarna, shoona, reincarnation, or wherever. But if your good fails to measure up, then you go to that religions’ hell, or whatever they call it.
Put another way, people think religion is like taking a course at university. You have an entrance and then you study. At the end of the journey there is an examination. You receive your degree on the basis of your merit. Acceptance comes at the end, if you pass the exam.
But that isn’t Christianity.
In Christianity, acceptance comes not at the end of the journey, but at the beginning. At the cross of Jesus Christ.
Faith in Jesus, in his finished sacrifice for sinners, immediately and forever provides eternal acceptance in God’s sight.
We could never be justified on the basis of our performance anyway. But, by faith, we are justified forever on the basis of Jesus’ righteousness and sacrifice.
Of course, people prefer the performance scheme of religion because it feeds pride. But pride is the greatest sin of all. “In the pride of his face the wicked does not seek him; all his thoughts are, “There is no God” (Psalms 10:4).
By contrast, Christianity provides no way for us to brag. The only thing that matters is faith in Jesus Christ, what he has done and will do for all who believe.
Thus, the Apostle Paul said, “…far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Galatians 6:14).
“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).
“For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his [God’s] sight” (Romans 3:20).
“We know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ” (Galatians 2:16).
Amen