Christ Rather Than Religion

Christ Rather Than Religion

1. Christ Is Someone To Know and Trust. Christ is more than a tradition or a belief. He is a Person who knows our needs, feels our pain, and sympathizes with our weakness. He offers to forgive our sins, intercede for us, and bring us to His Father. He died for us and rose from the dead to show that He was all He claimed to be. He offers Himself as a gift to anyone who will trust Him (John 20:24-31).

2. Religion Is Something To Believe and Do. Religion is believing in God, attending religious services, taking catechism, being baptized, receiving communion. Religion is tradition, ritual, and ceremony. Religion can even be reading and memorizing Scripture, offering prayers, giving to the poor, celebrating religious holy days. The Pharisees—Scripture-loving, conservative, separatistic spiritual leaders—practiced religion, yet they hated Christ because He saw through their religion to their hearts.

3. Religion Does not Change Hearts. Jesus said, “You Pharisees make the outside of the cup and dish clean, but your inward part is full of greed and wickedness” (Luke 11:39-40). He knew that religious credentials and ceremony can never change the heart. Jesus told a devoutly religious man that unless a person is “born again” by the Spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God (John 3:3).

4. Religion Makes Much of Little. Jesus spoke to religionists who had a passion for detail when He said, “Woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass by justice and the love of God (Luke 11:42). Jesus saw our tendency to make rules instead of keeping our eyes on the bigger issue of why we are trying to be so right. It was this greater “why” that the apostle Paul had in mind when he wrote, “Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:3).

5. Religion Offers the Approval of Men, Not God. Jesus reserved His strongest criticism for those who used their spiritual reputation to get social attention and honors (Luke 11:43). He said of the Pharisees, “All their works they do to be seen by men” (Matt. 23:5).

6. Religion Makes Hypocrites of Us. Jesus said, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like graves which are not seen, and the men who walk over them are not aware of them”

(Luke 11:44). What looks better than doing things that mark us as decent, God-fearing people? Yet how many religious people withhold encouragement from their wives, attention from their children, and love from their doctrinal enemies? Jesus knew that what looks good may have a heart of evil.

7. Religion Makes a Hard Life Harder. Because religion cannot change a heart, it tries to control people with laws and expectations that are not kept even by the religionists who interpret and apply the rules. Jesus said, “Woe to you also, lawyers [experts in religious law]! For you load men with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers” (Luke 11:46). Religion is good at describing high standards of behavior and relationships, but poor at giving real help to those who realize they have not lived up to expectations.

8. Religion Makes It Easy To Deceive Ourselves. The Pharisees prided themselves in honoring and building memorials to the prophets. The irony is that when they met a real prophet they wanted to kill Him (Luke 11:47-51). The Pharisees fooled themselves. Religionists do not see themselves as the God-rejecting people they are.

9. Religion Hides the Key of Knowledge. Religion can cause us to be a danger not only to ourselves but also to others. To the religious biblical experts of His day Jesus said, “Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter in yourselves, and those who were entering in you hindered” (Luke 11:52). Rather than leading people to God, religionists shift the focus to themselves and their rules.

10. Religion Leads Its Converts Astray. In Matthew 23:15, Jesus said, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.” Converts of religion bring a double enthusiasm to their new way of life, and with zeal, they blindly defend their blind teachers. They put themselves in the trust of people who have exchanged the life, forgiveness, and relationship of an infinite Savior for a system of rules and traditions. Religion is important in its place (James 1:26-27), but only when it points us to Christ, who died for our sins and offers to live His life through those who trust Him (Galatians 2:20; Titus 3:5).

Grand Rapids, MI. Reprinted by permission.