The Post-Christian Era: Christianity the Religion
Wow. A lot has happened over the past year and I’m honestly just still in awe at all that’s happened in my life. A year ago, if you told me that I’d be going on a nine-month mission trip the next year, I’d probably have walked away after having laughed in your face. Then again, that’s the beauty of the transformation. I wouldn’t have believed you after my college school year either. But here I am, about to leave the country for 9 months. The transformation in my life has been awesome and as a result, a few people having seen this transformation have asked me what the heck happened in my life and how. How I managed to fully indulge myself into being a Christian in my freshman year of college at the University of Alabama. And then so on to continue in it, and to that extent. Crazy thing is that what I did is actually really simple and might sound too good to be true but that’s the beauty of how easy God makes it and that’s what I plan to share today. If you’ve ever wondered how it all happened for me, I encourage you to read through to the end. After praying, I believe that every person that clicked on this made their way here for a reason and God might be trying to communicate something to you today. This is an intentional nugget that impacted my life so much more than you know so I pray that it would help you in some way. Here goes the how behind my walk of faith…
“Entering into Christianity is not the act of entering into religion. Christianity is not a list of things to do. Entering into Christianity is firstly and most importantly the simplicity of receiving the forgiveness of our sins and entering into a daily relationship with God.”
And that’s just what I plan to talk about today.
Just a little backdrop..the definition for ‘religion’ is “a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.” But the part I want to differentiate and focus on is the underlined whereas the definition for relationship is “a connection, association, or involvement.“ again where I want to focus on the differences between the underlined. People think christianity and they think of the underlined in the definition of religion and lump in christianity under the religion category where as the thing is that Christianity is very different from all religions today. “The difference between Christianity and every other faith in the world is that all other religions are about man trying to reach up to God. Christianity is about God reaching down to man.” And others talking about how other religions focus solely on the works of man for God where as Christianity focuses on the one work God did for man. And how other religions believe there is no connection or accessible way to a personal relationship with God and Christianity focuses on this daily personal relationship with God. Anyways…here goes…
This past year, I committed my life to Christ. And it was the best decision I’ve ever made. But let me tell you why. I made such a simple yet big and amazing decision. Today, a lot of people on the ‘outside’ are unaware of what this decision actually is and never find out because they simply don’t ask. A lot of people today think that this decision of giving your life to God is entering into a list of rules and regulations that you abide by at all times or you’re not a Christian. Yet their assumption simply just misses the mark. Giving your life to God and committing your life to Christ goes hand in hand with the result of in your heart receiving the forgiveness of sins. Jesus offers you Heaven and so, knowing this, you can accept the debt He paid on the cross and choose to begin your relationship with God. That’s just what I did this past September. And that’s the reason why I continue to stand firm in what I’ve stepped into; because of my relationship with God.
At the very beginning of my walk, I still struggled a good bit. One thing I learned is that we feel like we have to be perfect so we tend to keep our struggles on the inside so that other people think we’re doing good, yet the Bible tells us that talking with others and sharing our struggles and sins with others is what goes on to free us and strengthen us in the long-run. But yes, I still had my fair share of struggles especially at the beginning of my walk learning how to handle them. If you didn’t know, committing your life to Christ doesn’t turn you into Christ overnight by any means, it brings Christ inside of you and begins to reflect Christ through you.
As for having struggles, I still do. We all have struggles, I just see now that God always provides a way out.
As I stepped into my relationship with God, I just didn’t have this knowledge. I still struggled with the ways of the world and participating freely in this but I feel like God allowed this to happen so that I could learn. If this represents the case, He used my mistakes to teach me, rather than shelter me in and allow me to want what was on the outside. He was able to show me that what He had was better because of this. What I realized from this is that the moment you taste the world having truly tasted the things of God is the moment that you realize the bitterness and the distastefulness of the world.
I can’t stress enough that it was not about me or the actions I was doing that transformed my life, it was about God and my relationship with God and what He was able to do because I pursued to be near to Him. Prioritizing my relationship with Him first.The way to taste God and the things of God is through relationship with Him. A personal relationship with the Creator. The One who created pleasures and joy Himself. Today, a lot of people in Christianity struggle with going back to the taste of the world because they have not truly tasted what God wants to give them through their relationship with Him. This is how I was able to both maintain AND grow my faith. He would continually offer me more and more and it was continually satisfying, way more-so than the world. After all, Jesus does tell us a couple things about this and the satisfaction and taste of the world…
“Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” John 4:13-14
And then later in John 7 when He says….“If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.”
The word ‘thirsty’ in the original language actually is define as “desiring; to long for ardently” showing that the thirst is like a momentary time of desiring and how the things of the world will lead us to want them again. Showing that the world will never fully satisfy, which is why we find ourselves continually having to go back to the things of the world to feel happy or satisfied trying to achieve things of satisfaction. Yet, Jesus tells us that we will never thirst if we come to Him, and that we implant into us a SPRING of water that will flow showing that not only will we be satisfied but that Jesus will plant satisfaction inside of our hearts.
Jesus will continually not only satisfy our true inner desires, but He will go as far to sustain us if we allow Him to by coming to His well and the not the worlds.
This was the truth that I lived by through my first year of college and look at how it turned out. We need to take the focus off the things we do for God, and put the focus on the reason why we do things for God. Not trying to be a good person or to look exactly like God, but to focus on our personal relationship with Him. God is a personal God who wants relationship WITH YOU and to work through you and do the things you could never do on your own. In the Bible, He continually worked through people all throughout His relationship with them. Sometimes were found trying do all of the right things which stems in us the result of falling away or making the wrong decision when the pressures comes and pulls us away and distracts us from focusing on our relationship with God which is a catalyst to a quickened failure. But there’s good news for this.
It helps to quicken our realization that we all fall short.
I hate that at some moments when people fall short, they manage to forget the grace God wants to offer them out of His love for them even in these moments when it seems we separate ourselves from Him. As if we need to do something holy or right in that moment so that we can come back to Him. NO!! Jesus made this easy for us by dying on a cross and making that action so that we don’t have to!! There’s a reason that we feel this in our hearts and it’s simply the Holy Spirit trying to point us to Jesus’ sacrifice to show us all the more how much weight the Cross carries. We can come back to God in those moments immediately because of His never-ending and all-sustaining mercy and grace.
God does not become distant in these times, God makes our accessibility to Him so much more evident and shows us how much He loves us.
Somewhat related yet on another note, when it comes to life we can’t we can’t find ourselves walking everywhere from place to place, especially city to city. My point is that we need a car so we can drive and make it there reasonably and rationally. But then again, in a car it requires gas for our car to get from place to place. When it comes to driving, I have to get gas so I can keep going from place to place. Personally, I feel like this analogy of the car is a good analogy when it comes to our relationship with God. A car can take you places that you could never go walking and with that being said, the moment we begin to use this car instead of walking, we do so much more in life than we ever thought we could. We’ve finally discovered a new way to live that is so much better and we’ve reached the point in our lives where we realize God has so much more in store for us than the world does so we choose what He offers us and not the world. God knows us and He knows what we need; whereas the world does not. Then again, a car must be refueled with gas and if we don’t put gas in the tank, we will find ourselves going nowhere.
This relates so well to us trying to achieve the things God has in store for us or even maintain our walk in Christianity without falling away. What I’ve realized is that our relationship with God represents the gas in this picture and is the ultimate fuel to our lives and the only sustaining fuel that will never run out. Our works will run dry and we will always fall short, but if we’re operating out of our relationship with God with Him by our side and before us, when we fall, we will fall at His feet instead of falling away so He can pick us right back up. We fall away when we feel like we’re doing it for Him and not with Him because we don’t realize He’s right there next to us to pick us up. What I’ve realized is that we always want to get to the place God is trying to take us, but if we are not operating out of our relationship with God, we will not make it there. Trying to operate out of our own works and do our best for God might last a while but at some point, we will always live out the truth mentioned in the Bible; WE WILL ALWAYS FALL SHORT. Living out our daily relationship with God is the only way that we will find ourselves reaching the things God always wanted to give to us.
The moment we begin to solely focus on “I have to do this” or “I’m not doing this good enough” or make it about what we’re doing and not about Him is the moment we attempt to put diesel fuel in a car that was meant to take gas.
It can be easily mistaken at the sight of the eye as the same kind of fuel but it just doesn’t work. God did not intend for us to focus on our works or what we do. God intended for us to focus on Him, and by focusing on Him the works that He wants are produced. Our works are a result of our core, our heart. God wants our heart and if we can give Him our heart through relationship, our hearts unite and our heart acts on its desires that God has newly place in us through our relationship with Him. The fruits become evident. We begin to grow as we discover the true and new way to live that is known as Christianity at the core through relationship with God. Jesus didn’t die on a cross just so that we could go to Heaven, Jesus gave his life and the veil was torn so that we could enter into a relationship with God and have a new and better and actually satisfying life. If you profess to be a Christian, you are not claiming a religion, you are owning up to having a relationship with God. But the thing is, this is a loving relationship where God continually showers you with His love, grace, mercy, compassion, and all the things He wants for you and all the things He has in store for you. But today, there’s three things ringing in my mind that I can promise He’s communicating to you.
You are MY child. You are a son of the king and you are deemed royalty and should be treated as so. God wants you to see Him as the Father He is for you.
I love you. You are a child of the King. You are royalty in His eyes. And the next thing is that Him being your father, He loves you. You couldn’t earn it, you couldn’t do anything to deserve it. He just loves you for who you are. And there’s one reason for that and this leads to the next thing.
I am proud of you. God is so proud of you and who you are in Christ. And even when you stumble, God is still proud of you because He doesn’t have the same perspective that we do. Our perspective doesn’t allow us to be proud of our falls or stumbling blocks but God is continually proud of us because He doesn’t look down upon our struggles, He looks up to the person that the struggles are being used for to transform us. He doesn’t see who we are now, He sees the person we are that He has in store for us.
That’s the beauty of relationship with God. I wish I could tell you more about my thoughts and feelings on this but I’d have to write a few books to share just a little bit about the beauty of walking out relationship with. At the same time of relieving pressure, you will see that it even begins to relieve you of a lot of temptations and shows and provides you a way out of things that you never thought possible. He’ll show you that the life you see Christians live that by no means could be fun is actually the most fun you could ever have. I’ve enjoyed this past year and would easily say it’s been the best year of my life because I feel like I’ve finally been truly living. Especially to see this happen in the midst of a generation seemingly unaware of the relationship that God wants with them. I’ve heard a lot of people refer to the time we’re currently in as the “Post-Christian Era” but even though this may be a post-Christian Era, I have a different perspective that I truly believe and by sight looks like we’re living in now. I can see it happening all around and coming together because right now, we’re in
The Pre-Christian Era: Christianity the Relationship
