Compared to really ‘knowing Christ,’ being religious is easy. Fulfilling a set of obligatory rituals, attending meetings, and giving contributions to our church can soothe our minds, making feel as though we are ‘all right’ with the Lord. There will be a gnawing ache, a sense of longing, but it can be stilled temporarily by doing more churchy things. Then, too, we can turn our attention to theology. Somehow knowing ‘the truth,’ replaces knowing the Person of Christ. Pursuing Christ, seeking to know Him, demands much more of me; time, focus, patience, and discipline.
Disciple, here is a key question. Do you love Jesus Christ, or are you substituting religion? Is your faith founded on the pursuit of a relationship with God or is expressed by adhering to a set of truths and a set of behavioral values?
In the average American church this Sunday a 'worshipper' will encounter little in the way of the 'mystery of faith!' The wonder of knowing God has been screened out, replaced with rational, reasonable, and practical programs and talks designed to help people cope with life. We are great at creating religious processes, often with the best of intentions. The ‘product’ may be morally upright citizens, respectable people, intricate systems that help us to manage our sin. Yes, all this involves “Jesus” but He largely lives in an ancient Book and/or in the pictures on the Sunday School walls. Instead of embracing the pain, the struggles, the doubts that make us desperate to know God, we carefully air brush those things out of our church lexicon and work out neat explanations for life which we ardently believe - until they don't work anymore - and then we become churched agnostics. Genuine spirituality is messy, mysterious, and uncontrollable and that's simply too risky to encourage!
The true Christian life is a Spirit thing! Jesus described the work of the Spirit to a man hungry to know God this way;
"Unless a person is born from above, it’s not possible to see what I’m pointing to—to God’s kingdom." . . .
Unless a person submits to this original creation—the ‘wind-hovering-over-the-water’ creation, the invisible moving the visible, a baptism into a new life—it’s not possible to enter God’s kingdom. . . . the person who takes shape within is formed by something you can’t see and touch—the Spirit—and becomes a living spirit. . . .
You know well enough how the wind blows this way and that. You hear it rustling through the trees, but you have no idea where it comes from or where it’s headed next. That’s the way it is with everyone ‘born from above’ by the wind of God, the Spirit of God." (John 3:3-9, The Message)
A couple of decades later, when there were Christ-followers all over the Roman empire, men and women whose lives were wondrously changed by the Spirit, along came religious teachers who tried to kill the mystery and substitute their systems and rules. Amazingly, those who truly knew God, the Holy Spirit, often were deceived by the religious tone and seemingly rational presentations. This led Paul, the messenger of the Spirit, to something like rage! To one group of Believers who had traded their relationship with God for a religion he wrote -- "You crazy Galatians! Did someone put a hex on you? Have you taken leave of your senses? Something crazy has happened, for it’s obvious that you no longer have the crucified Jesus in clear focus in your lives. His sacrifice on the cross was certainly set before you clearly enough.
Let me put this question to you: How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God’s Message to you? Are you going to continue this craziness? For only crazy people would think they could complete by their own efforts what was begun by God. If you weren’t smart enough or strong enough to begin it, how do you suppose you could perfect it? Did you go through this whole painful learning process for nothing? It is not yet a total loss, but it certainly will be if you keep this up!" (Galatians 3:1-4, The Message)
It's a Spirit thing. Our faith is first relational, then propositional; knowing Jesus by the Spirit, and then learning the foundational Truths about life from Him.
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Sweet Jesus Christ my sanity
Sweet Jesus Christ my clarity
Bread of heaven broken for me
Cup of Salvation held out to drink
Jesus mystery
Christ has died and
Christ is risen
Christ will come again
Celebrate His death and rising
Lift your eyes proclaim His coming
Celebrate His death and rising
Lift your eyes lift your eyes
Sweet Jesus Christ my sanity
Mystery
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Charlie Hall
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