Living a Religious Life Versus a Gospel Empowered Christian Life

Religion is a Lifestyle of Good Practices to Get Favor with God. The Gospel of Jesus Gives Us Favor with God as a Free Gift

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This is Part 1 of 2. Part 2 will be Wednesday June24

If we think of Christianity as what we do instead of who we are, we begin from the wrong foundation. We begin on a religious foundation.

A definition of religious is: “Religion is a cultural system of practices and worldviews that tries to connect us to the spiritual and the supernatural.”

A definition of NOT being religious means a person does not identify with any practices or adhere to any organized way of life. It can even mean not holding any real beliefs in a higher power to simply not participating in traditional human ways or services or methods of living systematically.

Religion can encourage us to do good without any thought of including God in what we do. It can be seen as ‘doing good without God.’

The gospel directs us to include God in our thoughts before we even think of doing anything good. We listen to him and seek his direction.

Romans says: “We are not under any laws or rules but are under grace.” If we live under a system of rules our thoughts are on what we do to be seen as being right by God and others. And non-gospel preaching always tells us there is more we must do. There’s always a next. “We can always be just a little bit better tomorrow than we were today, right?”

Scripture tells us that the gospel is, ‘the power of God,’ and also ‘good news of good things.’ This doesn’t have us starting out on a foundation of ACTION but rather on a foundation of ATTITUDE.

The religious system before Christ’s cross was about: “Repent from sin.” John the Baptist was the one God selected to introduce Jesus to people. And this was still his ministry as he did introduce Jesus: telling folks to make their lives better and to stop sinning. It was about RELIGIOUS BEHAVIOR.

But John God must have been told him something he didn’t understand. He made a staggering statement that shocked everyone: “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

The response from people must have been something like this! “Take away sin? That doesn’t make any sense. We’re humans and we sin. Being sin conscious and being able to manage sin, and self betterment is our foundation of everything we’ve done FOR CENTURIES.”

In saying, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” I wonder if John didn’t know he was declaring himself out of a job. He’d have to join unemployment lines. Or maybe he just spent too much time in the hot sun. If we don’t understand something our minds play tricks on us.

The Definition of a Gospel Life is Different

Again, the gospel is a lot more about who we are than it is about what we do, even though what we do is very important. It just begins in ATTITUDE before we take ACTION.

Jesus quickly changed John’s way of living a religious life of behavior that was focused on sin. The reason is this: (1) Jesus came to become sin for us, and for those who believe in him and trust him throw our sins in the trash can, and (2) to give us relationship with God’ — ‘right standing with him’ as we lawyers like to say.

The very first words Jesus ever said to folks on this earth were: “Repent and forsake everything you’ve ever believed and only believe my gospel.” He changed our foundation from BEHAVIOR to BELIEF. He didn’t give us a choice. He didn’t intend to.

Thus, I frequently say, “Good behavior will never produce correct belief, but correct belief will eventually produce good, or at least better behavior.”

Proverbs says, “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.”

Religious behavior begins with what we do, not who we are. Gospel belief begins with who we are, not what we do.

To reiterate, the gospel begins by telling us who we are. It’s called our identity. It includes God in our thinking. Our identity in God, as explained by Jesus, is far different than any human identity of people who don’t include God in what they think.

So Exactly Who Are We in the Gospel?

At salvation, Jesus didn’t just forgive us; He made us brand new people.

Second Corinthians says: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation in Christ. Old things have passed away; behold all things have become new.” This doesn’t mean we become sinless. All us humans have sin and will die with sin in us. In its most basic form, sin is simply separation from God.

God made us into a completely new species, no longer just human. He makes us into a “God-Man’ — no gender implied.

First John says, “As Jesus is, so also are we in this world.”

Colossians says God made us alive together with Jesus, having cancelled out the sins that were against us by nailing it to his cross.

Sin, or living out of any relationship with God, is what we are all born into in this world. I call it “Adam’s boat.” We must choose to get out of his boat and into ‘The boat of Jesus.’