NEWS Christianity Today
What has Christianity become since Christ was crucified on the Cross?
I have been asking myself that question for a while now. I have been asking God to reveal the answer to me. Today, after years of prayer, I got a glimpse of the truth. Here it is:
Christianity today is a religion about Jesus instead of a relationship with Him. It is Jesus without the Cross. Jesus is Savior, but He is not Lord.
I know God speaks the truth, so where is the proof that Christianity has become a religion about Jesus instead of a relationship with Him?
Take a look at your own life and those of people who you know. What do you see when you look at them?
My guess is you see a lot of troubled and dark hearts. My guess is that you don't see much love, joy, peace, self-control, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and gentleness.
Why is this?
It is simply because Jesus is not Lord. Most people refuse to take up their cross and have what is not of Christ in their hearts crucified.
So you might ask, what would we see in people who not only called themselves Christians but truly had the heart of Christ? Here's what we would see:
They would have love. They would have joy. They would have peace. They would have patience. They would have self-control. They would have faithfulness. They would have goodness. They would have kindness. They would have gentleness.
This is what St. Paul called "Fruit of the Spirit." It is the fruit we bear in our hearts from His vine when Jesus becomes Lord.
Now let's recognize one thing. This is "SPIRITUAL FRUIT." It's not "religious fruit." There is no such thing as religious fruit in Christianity. God is Spirit! He is most certainly not religion!
Now, take a look around. How much Jesus do you see in the world today? How much peace, love, joy, patience, self control, faithfulness, goodness, kindness and gentleness do you see today? Not much, right?
If the people who call themselves Christians really were followers of Christ, we would see far more Spiritual Fruit in the world than we do today. There are over 2 billion people today that classify themselves as Christian. Over 2 billion! And that number is growing every day.
How many of those more than 2 billion go to the Cross daily? I would venture to say very few. People that have received the Holy Spirit - which is the greatest blessing one could ever receive - know one very important thing: Jesus without the Cross equals religion. Religion cannot bear Fruit on the Lord's vine. It is impossible. It cannot be done. If you don't believe me, open up your Bible to Matthew, Mark, Luke or John and read it carefully. It's all there in black and white.
So we live in a world where Spiritual Fruit - love, joy, peace, patience, self control, faithfulness, goodness, kindness and gentleness - is in short supply. This means one thing and one thing only: Jesus is not Lord.
If Jesus were Lord, we would see a lot more Spiritual Fruit. It would be everywhere! But it's not everywhere. In fact, it's hardly anywhere at all. I have heard people refer to their living conditions on Earth as "a hell hole." That's a pretty good description. It is a "hell hole" for one reason - because Jesus is not Lord!
I've heard Joyce Meyer (a woman who was sexually abused by her own father when she was a child) say that people think going to church every week makes them a Christian. Joyce says we can sit in our garage all day and that doesn't make us a car. How true that is! Joyce's point is this: Going to church and being a Christian can be, and often are, two totally different things. Unless you go to the cross, you can sit in church from here until eternity and never become a disciple of Christ.
The Cross is the place where Jesus becomes Lord of our heart!
Proclaiming Jesus as your Savior may get you into heaven. But we know that until Jesus becomes Lord, you will bear little if any Spiritual Fruit. In fact, until Jesus becomes your Lord, your life will in all likelihood be or become "a living hell."
So let me ask one more important question:
If God promised you could have more love, more joy, more peace, more self control, more patience, more goodness, more kindness, more gentleness in your life, would you want it? Well, God has made this possible. But it comes with a cost. What is the cost, you ask? The cost is your heart - your life.
The Cross is the place where we exchange the darkness in our heart for the light of Christ. The Cross is where darkness is transformed to love, light and life - what my friend Chip Brogden call the three most important words in all the Scriptures.
So how do we transform the darkness in our hearts to light?
The first thing you have to do is this: Pray to God to be blessed with the Holy Spirit. Ask God to give you the Holy Spirit. You will know when you receive the Holy Spirit. The Bible will make very little sense to you until you receive the Holy Spirit. It is impossible to be a Christian without the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit that allows you to become One with God.
Once you receive the Holy Spirit, the hard work on the Cross begins.
Will the Cross be painful? You bet it will be. Will you cry? You bet you will. Will Satan try to disrupt you? You bet he will. But it's all necessary and part of the process of having your heart transformed from darkness to light.
How long will this process take? Well, that depends on how hard you work on the cross. The harder you work - that is, the more you allow the Lord to crucify Self and transform you into His image - the less time it takes. It all depends on your desire to transform your heart from darkness into light.
There is much pain, but God promises you that by going to the Cross, He can transform your heart into all those wondrous things that are of Jesus. The darkness in your heart will be transformed to light! You will shine! And your heart will transform other hearts and the world will begin to bear more Spiritual Fruit. As John the Baptist said, He must increase, but I must decrease.
You see, Jesus MUST increase. He must. God tells us that He must. And the only way He can increase is by you decreasing. That's what the cross is all about! The cross is the place where we decrease and He increases! That, in sum, is what Christianity is all about. It's about Christ increasing!
Now, you might say, I can't go to the Cross. I don't know how? Well, ask God to help you. He will. He will tell you that through Jesus, you can do all things. Jesus will strengthen you. The Holy Spirit will guide you. Nothing is impossible with Jesus as Lord. Nothing! But you must have faith and trust. This is absolutely essential.
Many people stumble or have great difficulty following Jesus because they have very little faith and do not trust God.
If you take up your cross and have faith in and trust Jesus, you will bear Spiritual Fruit on His vine. That is a promise God makes to you by accepting Jesus as your Lord. All the darkness in your heart - the stuff that makes your life "a living hell" will be transformed into light.
Your heart will be filled with love, joy, peace, self control, patience, goodness, kindness, and gentleness - the Fruit of the Spirit.
You see, Christianity is not a religion. It's an affair of the heart. Man has turned Jesus into a religion, but that's not what God intended when he sent his Son here and made Him go to the cross and sacrifice His life so that we may have an amazing, glorious life through Him.
Many people think Jesus went to the Cross for them so they don't have to. But that is not true. It is simply not true! Jesus clearly tells us that we must take up our own crosses if we are to follow Him and have victory. The life of a true disciple of Christ is a victorious life. Jesus battled Satan and Satan lost. The only way to claim victory over darkness is to go to the Cross and have whatever is not of Christ in your heart crucified.
Christianity is all about having our hearts transformed into the heart of Christ. As children of God, we are called to love, and love resides in the heart. We are to first love God with all of our heart and second, love our neighbors as ourselves.
Here's what St. Paul told the Romans:
Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not steal," "Do not covet," and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. (Romans 13:8-10)
All the commandments are summed into one rule: LOVE!
Our hearts will never be as pure as Christ. However, over time, as we go to the Cross and the darkness in our hearts is transformed to light, our hearts will become pure enough to see God. As Jesus said:
Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. (Matthew 5:8)
When you see God as love, which is Who He Is (1 John 4:8), you will know your heart has been purified.
So, in the final analysis, we all have two choices. We can:
1. Profess Jesus as Lord, go to the Cross daily and have the darkness that is still in our hearts crucified. Through this process, we will bear much Spiritual Fruit.
Or, we can:
2. Profess Jesus as Savior and deal with Satan and his darkness every single day and bear little if no Spiritual Fruit. Choosing this option may lead to life as "a living hell."
God gives us the freedom to make the choice.
The choice is yours.
Christianity is not a religion - it is a love affair of the heart.
As St. Paul said to the Galatians:
The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. (Galatians 5:6)
In one sentence, St. Paul captures the essence of Christianity: Faith expressing itself through love.
It is, he says, the only thing that counts.
May your heart be filled with His Spiritual Fruit.
Agape,
Steve
ps: please feel free to send this article to others if you believe it can be a blessing to them.
I have been asking myself that question for a while now. I have been asking God to reveal the answer to me. Today, after years of prayer, I got a glimpse of the truth. Here it is:
Christianity today is a religion about Jesus instead of a relationship with Him. It is Jesus without the Cross. Jesus is Savior, but He is not Lord.
I know God speaks the truth, so where is the proof that Christianity has become a religion about Jesus instead of a relationship with Him?
Take a look at your own life and those of people who you know. What do you see when you look at them?
My guess is you see a lot of troubled and dark hearts. My guess is that you don't see much love, joy, peace, self-control, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and gentleness.
Why is this?
It is simply because Jesus is not Lord. Most people refuse to take up their cross and have what is not of Christ in their hearts crucified.
So you might ask, what would we see in people who not only called themselves Christians but truly had the heart of Christ? Here's what we would see:
They would have love. They would have joy. They would have peace. They would have patience. They would have self-control. They would have faithfulness. They would have goodness. They would have kindness. They would have gentleness.
This is what St. Paul called "Fruit of the Spirit." It is the fruit we bear in our hearts from His vine when Jesus becomes Lord.
Now let's recognize one thing. This is "SPIRITUAL FRUIT." It's not "religious fruit." There is no such thing as religious fruit in Christianity. God is Spirit! He is most certainly not religion!
Now, take a look around. How much Jesus do you see in the world today? How much peace, love, joy, patience, self control, faithfulness, goodness, kindness and gentleness do you see today? Not much, right?
If the people who call themselves Christians really were followers of Christ, we would see far more Spiritual Fruit in the world than we do today. There are over 2 billion people today that classify themselves as Christian. Over 2 billion! And that number is growing every day.
How many of those more than 2 billion go to the Cross daily? I would venture to say very few. People that have received the Holy Spirit - which is the greatest blessing one could ever receive - know one very important thing: Jesus without the Cross equals religion. Religion cannot bear Fruit on the Lord's vine. It is impossible. It cannot be done. If you don't believe me, open up your Bible to Matthew, Mark, Luke or John and read it carefully. It's all there in black and white.
So we live in a world where Spiritual Fruit - love, joy, peace, patience, self control, faithfulness, goodness, kindness and gentleness - is in short supply. This means one thing and one thing only: Jesus is not Lord.
If Jesus were Lord, we would see a lot more Spiritual Fruit. It would be everywhere! But it's not everywhere. In fact, it's hardly anywhere at all. I have heard people refer to their living conditions on Earth as "a hell hole." That's a pretty good description. It is a "hell hole" for one reason - because Jesus is not Lord!
I've heard Joyce Meyer (a woman who was sexually abused by her own father when she was a child) say that people think going to church every week makes them a Christian. Joyce says we can sit in our garage all day and that doesn't make us a car. How true that is! Joyce's point is this: Going to church and being a Christian can be, and often are, two totally different things. Unless you go to the cross, you can sit in church from here until eternity and never become a disciple of Christ.
The Cross is the place where Jesus becomes Lord of our heart!
Proclaiming Jesus as your Savior may get you into heaven. But we know that until Jesus becomes Lord, you will bear little if any Spiritual Fruit. In fact, until Jesus becomes your Lord, your life will in all likelihood be or become "a living hell."
So let me ask one more important question:
If God promised you could have more love, more joy, more peace, more self control, more patience, more goodness, more kindness, more gentleness in your life, would you want it? Well, God has made this possible. But it comes with a cost. What is the cost, you ask? The cost is your heart - your life.
The Cross is the place where we exchange the darkness in our heart for the light of Christ. The Cross is where darkness is transformed to love, light and life - what my friend Chip Brogden call the three most important words in all the Scriptures.
So how do we transform the darkness in our hearts to light?
The first thing you have to do is this: Pray to God to be blessed with the Holy Spirit. Ask God to give you the Holy Spirit. You will know when you receive the Holy Spirit. The Bible will make very little sense to you until you receive the Holy Spirit. It is impossible to be a Christian without the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit that allows you to become One with God.
Once you receive the Holy Spirit, the hard work on the Cross begins.
Will the Cross be painful? You bet it will be. Will you cry? You bet you will. Will Satan try to disrupt you? You bet he will. But it's all necessary and part of the process of having your heart transformed from darkness to light.
How long will this process take? Well, that depends on how hard you work on the cross. The harder you work - that is, the more you allow the Lord to crucify Self and transform you into His image - the less time it takes. It all depends on your desire to transform your heart from darkness into light.
There is much pain, but God promises you that by going to the Cross, He can transform your heart into all those wondrous things that are of Jesus. The darkness in your heart will be transformed to light! You will shine! And your heart will transform other hearts and the world will begin to bear more Spiritual Fruit. As John the Baptist said, He must increase, but I must decrease.
You see, Jesus MUST increase. He must. God tells us that He must. And the only way He can increase is by you decreasing. That's what the cross is all about! The cross is the place where we decrease and He increases! That, in sum, is what Christianity is all about. It's about Christ increasing!
Now, you might say, I can't go to the Cross. I don't know how? Well, ask God to help you. He will. He will tell you that through Jesus, you can do all things. Jesus will strengthen you. The Holy Spirit will guide you. Nothing is impossible with Jesus as Lord. Nothing! But you must have faith and trust. This is absolutely essential.
Many people stumble or have great difficulty following Jesus because they have very little faith and do not trust God.
If you take up your cross and have faith in and trust Jesus, you will bear Spiritual Fruit on His vine. That is a promise God makes to you by accepting Jesus as your Lord. All the darkness in your heart - the stuff that makes your life "a living hell" will be transformed into light.
Your heart will be filled with love, joy, peace, self control, patience, goodness, kindness, and gentleness - the Fruit of the Spirit.
You see, Christianity is not a religion. It's an affair of the heart. Man has turned Jesus into a religion, but that's not what God intended when he sent his Son here and made Him go to the cross and sacrifice His life so that we may have an amazing, glorious life through Him.
Many people think Jesus went to the Cross for them so they don't have to. But that is not true. It is simply not true! Jesus clearly tells us that we must take up our own crosses if we are to follow Him and have victory. The life of a true disciple of Christ is a victorious life. Jesus battled Satan and Satan lost. The only way to claim victory over darkness is to go to the Cross and have whatever is not of Christ in your heart crucified.
Christianity is all about having our hearts transformed into the heart of Christ. As children of God, we are called to love, and love resides in the heart. We are to first love God with all of our heart and second, love our neighbors as ourselves.
Here's what St. Paul told the Romans:
Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not steal," "Do not covet," and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. (Romans 13:8-10)
All the commandments are summed into one rule: LOVE!
Our hearts will never be as pure as Christ. However, over time, as we go to the Cross and the darkness in our hearts is transformed to light, our hearts will become pure enough to see God. As Jesus said:
Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. (Matthew 5:8)
When you see God as love, which is Who He Is (1 John 4:8), you will know your heart has been purified.
So, in the final analysis, we all have two choices. We can:
1. Profess Jesus as Lord, go to the Cross daily and have the darkness that is still in our hearts crucified. Through this process, we will bear much Spiritual Fruit.
Or, we can:
2. Profess Jesus as Savior and deal with Satan and his darkness every single day and bear little if no Spiritual Fruit. Choosing this option may lead to life as "a living hell."
God gives us the freedom to make the choice.
The choice is yours.
Christianity is not a religion - it is a love affair of the heart.
As St. Paul said to the Galatians:
The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. (Galatians 5:6)
In one sentence, St. Paul captures the essence of Christianity: Faith expressing itself through love.
It is, he says, the only thing that counts.
May your heart be filled with His Spiritual Fruit.
Agape,
Steve
ps: please feel free to send this article to others if you believe it can be a blessing to them.
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