Being Down On Religion...

Being Down On Religion...

"Now to the one who works, his wage is not reckoned as a favor, but as what is due. But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness" (Romans 4:4-5).

"For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law" (Romans 3:28).

Many people mistakenly think that the Golden Rule is the essence of Christianity, au contraire, which would make it a performance-based religion. You can take Buddha out of Buddhism, and Mohammad out of Islam, and you basically have the religions still intact, but you cannot do so with Christianity--Christianity IS Christ! (You must know Him!)


You must, first of all, be right about Him and His work: i.e., He is the incarnation of God or God in the flesh and He paid the price for our redemption from sin, by dying on the cross to do this and show His love for us, and rose from the dead as ultimate proof of the Father's acceptance to give us hope and reason for believing in life after death--a resurrection. Believing Christ lived and died is history, believing He did it for you is salvation!

It is a proven fact of psychology that religious people are happier than those who profess none. Paul complimented the philosophers of Athens on Mars Hill for being "very religious" meaning they were open to speculation and accepting of religious ideas, giving him the open door to preach. But Julian Huxley wrote Religion Without Revelation, in which he said you don't need God to know right from wrong--this is where Secular Humanism leads us. John Dewey wrote A Common Faith to say that you can be religious without a religion (Secular Humanism is a religion without God!). True religion is to walk in the Spirit of God and be led by Him as you live in faith and are faithful to your calling in life--in other words knowing Jesus and having a relationship with Him.

To say someone got religion is an insult to a Christian: " I tried religion," the pastor said, "and it didn't work." His friend asked him, "What then, you're a pastor?" He replied: "Then I tried Christ and a relationship with Him and it worked!"" As they say: The proof of the pudding is in the eating! I've heard of people saying that if that's what Christ can do for someone they want Him too--this is the power of one's testimony and witness for Christ to make Him known.


Many people today don't really hold anything against Christ, but against religion, especially organized religion and the church, as an institution. Jesus plainly said that eternal life is "knowing" Him, and this means more than knowing about Him. It is some kind of fellowship of the heart and love affair that no religion can match.

Religion has historically believed in making "sacrifices" to appease" or mollify and humor the gods who may be angry and cause bad luck, as it were. Still, in religion, it is always the individual or society making the sacrifice (such as their children or a lamb). In Christianity,y it is God Himself who makes the sacrifice because He can pay a debt we couldn't. We owed to Him for offending Him in our sin and rebellion, and His sacrifice is infinite. It cannot be measured, and therefore capable of saving mankind if they accept His work on their behalf--that is precisely what Christ did by paying the price of His blood shed for us so we wouldn't have to pay it in hell, and this is a free gift of salvation offered to all if they only exercise faith in Him.

Religion is defined as doing something "religious" or displaying "religiosity." Secular Humanists believe you can be religious without having religion and they are gaining ascendancy with their ethical religion without God. It's a faith to live by and has a creed to believe. That is precisely what evil is: Being good without God or getting along without Him in the equation. Man's problem today is whether he can get along without the God he has left out of the picture, according to Will Durant. You can be a Christian without being religious, in fact, this is the normal Christian way of life--a walk of faith. The righteous shall live by faith according to Romans 1:17. "[W]e walk by faith, and not by sight" (2 Cor. 5:7, ESV).

Knowing about God will not satisfy the needs of the heart of man, but having a relationship with the personal God and knowing His will. Blaise Pascal, a French philosopher, said there is a "God-shaped vacuum" in our hearts that only God can fill. St. Augustine said that our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God. We are made to worship God and if we don't we will worship something or someone else. Christ promised a more abundant and fulfilling life in knowing Him, which is rewarding and worth it. "... [I] came that they may have life and have it abundantly" (John 10:10b, ESV).

Man strives to please God by his merits and works of the flesh (morality, philosophy, good deeds, ritual, etc.). Religion is also man's attempt to reach out to God, while God has taken the initiative and reached down in condescending to man--we are incapable of finding God through the doorway of religion! Man is incurably addicted to doing something for his salvation and the Jews asked Jesus what they could do: He replied that the "work of God" is believing in Him whom God sent. Salvation is a free gift of grace that cannot be earned or paid back and is not deserved or merited. Christianity is not a list of dos and don'ts, but following Christ in fellowship and love.

Christ paid the price of a debt we couldn't pay and owed for our sins to the Holy Father. It was an infinite price that only God could pay with His blood--He suffered to the max on our behalf. The crucifixion is the measure of His love because He didn't have to die, He volunteered and willingly went to the cross. Religion lays down what man is obliged to do, while the gospel reveals to us what God has done for us. There are a plethora of religions based on human achievement; however, Christianity is based on divine accomplishment, not human achievement or work.

Religion is a do-it-yourself proposition of lifting yourself up by your own bootstraps and trying to earn your way in, hoping your good deeds outweigh your bad ones at the Judgment. Christians don't do good because they have to, but because they want to. Works are a "therefore" not an "in order to" you might say. We don't have to, we get to! Viva la difference! Religion is performance-based and doesn't solve the problem of guilt that we all incur by our sins.


In Christianity, salvation is a done deal and complete, while in religion the key word is "do" and is never done--all you can do is hope and you will never be assured of heaven or salvation. You just can't ever know in a work religion. When you say that works bring salvation, that is pure religion, and when you mix works and faith that is legalism. "[H]e saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit" (Titus 3:5, ESV).

Christianity says that faith alone saves and works just naturally follow out of gratitude and a changed life (the Reformers said we are saved by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone--no fruit means no faith). You don't come to God with a changed life or a resolution to improve but come to God for a changed life. He doesn't put a new suit on the man, but a new man in the suit.


Millions of lives have been transformed and renewed by Christ, and this is not the case with other religions, because the problem we have is sin, not ignorance and Jesus came to save us from our sins. There is no other Savior in the world and no one else by whom we are commanded to call for salvation by a leap of faith to believe in our regenerated and renewed hearts.

Good works do have a place in Christianity, but they give us no merit before God. We are saved "unto good works," which means that we are not saved by them, but so we can do them--only believers have the power to do good works in God's eyes. Good deeds give us purpose and meaning in life as we cheerfully serve our Savior out of gratitude. The works we do are actually ordained or predetermined for us to "walk in them" (cf. Eph. 2:10). Note that Christ didn't die to make bad men good, but to make dead people alive! He came to bring life and life more abundantly (cf. John 10:10).

If we have no good works our faith is dead and dead faith cannot save! Without the evidence of good works, our faith is suspect because the true believer wants to do them. Sin doesn't show our freedom, but our slavery, and Christ came to save us from our sins, which are the issues and problems we have. Religion is the best man can do, it has been said, but Christianity is the best God can do.


This means we don't earn salvation, we receive it! The purpose of good deeds in perspective is vital to know: James says, "I'll show you my faith by my good works;" and Paul would say, "I'll show you my good works by my faith." They go hand in hand and you can only distinguish them, but not separate them--they are no substitute for faith, but only evidence that it is real.

RELIGION EQUALS KNOWING OR CONFESSING A CODE OR CREED; CHRISTIANITY MEANS KNOWING A PERSON AND HAVING LIFE WITH HIM, PERIOD. SOLI DEO GLORIA

Does God Woo All?...

NOTE: I USE THE TERM ARMINIAN TO REFER TO THOSE WHO DENY THE TULIP FORMULA OF CALVINISM  (OR REFORMED THEOLOGY) BUT SOME THEOLOGIANS CLAIM TO BE FOUR-POINTERS, DENYING THE LIMITE OR DEFINITE ATONEMENT SCHEMA. THERE ARE ONLY TWO INTERPATIONS OF THE GOSPELS OF GRACE: ARMINIAN AND CALVINIST AND MOST FALL SOMEWHERE INBETWEEN, LIKE ARMINIANS WHO AFFIRM ETERNAL SECURITY. 

There is no question that we cannot come to Christ apart from the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives to make us able and willing to believe ("This is the work of God, that you believe..." according to John 6:29).  Some theologians of the Arminian persuasion do admit to the wooing of the Holy Spirit and even have a name for the pre-salvation work of Christ in our hearts, known as prevenient grace, whereby God makes you able to respond to the gospel. Calvinists or Reformed theologians subscribe to an efficacious grace or as it is called irresistible grace (cf. Rom. 5:21). 

God doesn't try to save sinners, He saves them.  He doesn't offer to save us but saves us.  The word for wooing in Koine (Greek )is elko, which means to compel or drag.  You can picture drawing water from a well.  God has the power to make the most unwilling willing, and to turn hearts of stone into hearts of flesh! God literally drags us into the kingdom and makes believers out of us!

The big issue is whether God draws all and if He does, does He draw them equally? And if all are wooed, why do some not respond?   The golden chain of redemption in Romans 8:29-30 says that whom He foreknew He called.  There is a general gospel call given to all the world (cf. Titus 2:11), but the inner calling of the Holy Spirit is only given to the elect. (cf. Acts 2:32).  "The elect obtained unto it, and the rest were hardened,"  (cf. Rom. 11:7). "As many as were elected believed..." (Acts 13:48).  We are commanded to call all because we do not know whom the elect are, but God looks on the heart and knows those who are His.  God doesn't draw all equally, because some need more work than others and are given more grace ("Where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more," according to Rom. 5:20).

The Arminian will not admit that God doesn't draw some at all, but leaves them in their sin. (Passing them by is called preterition).   God reserves the right to have mercy on whom He will have mercy according to Romans 9:15.  No one can resist God's will according to Romans 9:19 and if God decides to save someone, they will get saved--He is determined to bring about the salvation of the elect at the appointed time.  This brings up the issue or doctrine of preterition, which is when God passes over the non-elect so that they will receive the justice of God and not the mercy of God. He doesn't work fresh evil in their hearts but simply lets them go their way of sin and follow their hearts in the flesh, enslaved to sin.

"No man can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them," (cf. John 6:44).  We cannot respond to the gospel apart from the wooing, and this wooing  guarantees that we will respond to the gospel message--the Greek word elko means "to compel by irresistible superiority." Arminians like the word "woo" because it doesn't sound authoritarian, but that is downgrading God's omnipotence and sovereignty.  Arminians believe God may only draw those He sees will respond, but cannot say why God doesn't woo the others who fail to come to Christ.  Perhaps it is the intensity of the wooing! We cannot attribute some merit to ourselves for responding to the wooing ministry, for salvation is by grace alone.

The big question is why some people respond and others don't.  According to Scripture, we are called according to His purpose and grace and to the pleasure of His good will, nothing inherent in us to boast of.  "What do you have that you didn't receive?" (1 Cor. 4:7).  We have no inherent virtue or wisdom to qualify us for the kingdom. The only explanation is that faith is a gift from God and the result of regeneration not the cause of it--we don't conjure it up, but faith is not achieved but given.  We believer through grace. (Acts 18:27).  

However, the Arminian believes some respond favorably because of something in them such as being less biased or smarter, which makes salvation is ultimately based on their merit and works and not grace and faith.  If  you can come to God in faith without being regenerated, what good is it?  There is a tug on the heart as the elect hears the gospel message ("Faith comes by hearing and by hearing of the Word of God" according to Rom. 10:17).        Soli Deo Gloria!

What Is Saving Faith?...

You gotta have faith!  How big is your God, not how big is your faith?  It depends on the strength of our God, not our faith.  Without faith, you cannot please God! (Cf. Heb. 11:6).  A real, genuine faith is one that grows and is not static or going nowhere.  True faith consists of right knowledge (you cannot subscribe to heresy), assent or agreement, and trust or reliance on it.  We don't have blind faith, for we have sound reasons to believe and don't believe in spite of the evidence.  We don't believe something we know isn't true--there is ample and compelling circumstantial evidence for the open-minded and willing person--no one can say there is lack of evidence.  We don't have faith in faith, but in the object of Christ (the object saves not the faith).  Faith is a verb and entails action:  "By faith Abraham obeyed ..." and so forth.  It is a matter of the will--it is volitional.  We choose to believe of our own ("If anyone's will is to do God's will, he will know..." (cf. John 7:17, ESV), but God quickens faith in us and makes us alive--dead people cannot believe!

We must take the leap of faith from the seed planted.  Faith is not a work (if it were we would have merit before God, but we are not saved by works).   If it were a work, we would foul it up somehow!   The faith you have is the faith you show:  Paul says, "I'll show you my works by my faith," while James says, "I'll show you my faith by my works."  We are saved by faith alone, according to the Reformation doctrine, but not by a faith that is alone.  Works are no substitute for faith, but only evidence of it, as we are saved unto works, not by works.

The theological axiom applies:  "Only he who is obedient believes, only he who believes is obedient." Obedience is the only true test of faith and they are correlated in Hebrews 3:18 and John 3:36. The obedience of faith separates the bogus profession of faith and the reality of faith as seen in Acts 6:7 ("... [M]any of the priests became obedient to the faith") and Romans 1:5.  You must trust and obey! (Mark 10:9 says, "What God has joined together let not man put asunder.")

Faith is given, not achieved--it is the gift of God and we do not conjure it up.   It is the work of God as His gift, but we must use it and take the leap.  "... [H]e greatly helped those who through grace had believed" (Acts 18:27, ESV).  But there is a difference between head belief and heart belief:  the demons also believe and tremble!  The first step to faith is a positive attitude expressed in listening, then understanding with the mind, then believing with the heart, and finally trusting and relying on will or volition.  The result:  "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope"  (Romans 15:13, ESV).

What is the progression of faith?  Openness to the truth (unbelievers reject the truth), acceptance of the gospel message, willingness to obey God's will in relinquishment, surrender to the Lordship of Christ, and self-denial and willingness to follow Jesus.  We must give up, surrender, and commit to what we know is true.  The elements of faith in progression are:  Knowing, reckoning, yielding, obeying, trusting, delighting, committing, waiting, and anticipating.

Its logical conclusion is a relationship with Jesus with a love for Him--"[T]hough you have not seen him, you love him (cf. 1 Pet. 1:8, ESV). Faith begets fruit and works, no fruit, no faith!  "If you love me, you will keep my commandments"  (John 14:15, ESV).  Note that no one has perfect faith:  God requires only sincere, unfeigned faith according to 1 Tim. 1:5 says:  "The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith" (ESV). Final Caveat: Beware of easy-believism whereby one thinks he is saved by merely believing without submitting to His lordship.  Soli Deo Gloria!

On Cloud Nine...

Is it realistic to expect Christians to always have their minds literally focused on Christ?  Hebrews 3:1; 12:2 says:  "Looking to Jesus...."  He is our Exemplar and the one to emulate.  Put everything in respect to the Lord first.  The only philosophy or worldview that Christ will fit into is the one where He is the starting point and premier focus.  We are not to be so heavenly minded, we are no earthly good, it is well said. This means don't have the perspective of man but see things through Christ's eyes and remembering Him at every opportunity--keeping the door of prayer open. We can be doing the most menial task and do it with the Lord in mind, as unto the Lord and in the name of the Lord, but we must concentrate on the job at hand and not try to multitask.  "Cursed is he who does the work of the LORD with slackness..." (Jer. 48:10, ESV).

Being a believer doesn't entail that we neglect the mundane because it is not spiritual.  Scripture warrants no distinguishing between sacred and secular duties--they are all to be done as unto the Lord! We need a disciplined mind that redeems the time for the Lord and makes the most of the opportunity given us. You cannot walk in the glow of some mystical or surreal experience for the rest of your life and think that is being spiritual.  God honors faith and a faith walk more than going by feelings or being dependent on them. Faith is what pleases God (cf. Heb. 11:6).

When we bring glory to God through our works we are minding heavenly things.  The goal of our thoughts and the pleasure of our thinking should be heavenly as we delight in the things of God in heaven: "Delight yourself in the LORD..." (cf. Psalm 37:4).  As we walk with the Lord in fellowship we enjoy His presence and blessing on our life, and we can see things in light of eternity as we have a more abundant life and live life to the fullest. 

Cloistered virtue is no virtue:  The monks of the dark ages would escape from the world to meditate in monasteries and their retreat from the world's cares was thought to make them "holy." ("Holier than thou" is more like it!)  God has put us in the world, but we are not part of it (cf. John 15:19).

We do not live for the here and now, as the heathen do, but in light of eternity and in preparation for the coming of the Lord.  When we see things from the divine viewpoint in Christ's perspective, we can live confidently and keep focused on what's really important--"Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness..." (cf. Matt. 6:33).   I know of no greater joy than of doing the Lord's work and if I can see that what I am doing has His blessing I enjoy it all the more--we live for the approbation and applause of our Savior, not man's approval.  If we are ready to meet our Maker we have certainly gotten our minds focused on the eternal and have put everything into perspective.

The more we treasure things in heaven and the more we have at stake here, the more focused we will be on heavenly things.  Once you've experienced the joy of the Lord, you will not settle for the cheap thrills of this life and what it has to offer.  We don't chase earthly fantasies or dreams that have no spiritual benefit. We need heavenly goals and a divine purpose, setting our plans on something that will outlast this life and count in eternity. 

An example of a heavenly philosophy would be:  I want to be a great Christian with a great commitment to the Great Commission and the Great Commandment.  Having the right mindset (getting our thinking straightened out) will give us endurance and orientation to face the trials and tribulations of life--our attitude counts.   Soli Deo Gloria!