Those who know me often ask, "Emma, why does it offend you so much when people call you religious?" The summary of my answer is, "Religion has no more to do with biblical Christianity than sitting in a church pew every Sunday does."
One difference between the two is that every religion is man made. Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Mormonism, and liberal Christianity all involve man’s interpretation of faith. When you start worshiping with another man’s credo, you are dangerously close to religion, not biblical Christianity. Many of these religions have a manual (Koran, Book of Mormon, the writings of Buddha) to go along with the true word of God. As a knightly Christian, I refuse to worship with any man’s rules other than those of the God man, my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. God is explicit about not taking away or adding anything to His word found in the bible.
Furthermore, the false prophets of religion teach that the only way to benevolence (God of their choice) is by good works. They teach self-esteem, moral actions, and humanistic pride as the way to their God of choice. However, never doubt that religion does not have to be centered on a God for it can be centered on mankind itself. Jesus foretold them coming in Matthew 24:11 when he said, "And many false prophets will appear and deceive many people."
Defining "Religion"
In the dictionary, "religion" is defined as a set of strongly-held beliefs, values, and attitudes that somebody lives by, or an object, practice, cause, or activity that somebody is completely devoted to or obsessed by. This can be anything that takes us away from the true living God—Jehovah, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Religion can be alcohol, drugs, pornography, a career, sex; thus, anything that drives a wedge between us and the trinity of God, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is a religion.
Religion teaches us to hide our sinful attitude behind a mask of goodness, righteousness, and secular humanism. How many self-help gurus have we heard claim to have the secret to our happiness by giving us self-esteem, pride, and true self worth? I tire of hearing pompous professors and teachers of "higher learning" telling young folks that the only way to fulfillment is through "enlightenment of the mind."
In his book, Hard to Believe--The High Cost and Infinite Value of Following Jesus, John MacArthur hit the nail on the head when he said, "Natural reason seeking God ends up ignorant, idolatrous, and demonic. Demons are behind all false religions. They are behind all philosophical and religious systems. They are behind every lofty thing lifted up against the knowledge of God. Any unbiblical, anti-God idea is demonic."
Don’t let anyone fool you--we all have masks. Biblical Christianity is taking that mask off, first before God, and then second, before man. Why the second, you ask? Because not doing so is denying Christ before man—denying his ability to free you from your bondage and denying his true kinship over you. If you hide what you are--a vile sinner--Satan wins. The Bible makes the point this way in 2 Corinthians 11:13-15: "For such men are false prophets, deceitful workmen, masquerading as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve."
Christ demands that we realize and admit our fallen state. He demands that we acknowledge before man that on our own we cannot reach benevolence. He demands that we become transparent with our sin, vile nature, and admit the dirty secrets and desires that permeate our minds. Religion requires us to hide our weakness because only the strong survive. Biblical Christianity demands that we admit our weakness to become strong so we may survive.
God's Grand Plan
God’s grand plan of the Bible first showed Jesus Christ as a lamb coming to earth as a man full of the blood God required for the forgiveness of our sin. It then talks about Christ coming back as the lion, conqueror of Satan’s world, "And every knee will bow." My point is that God required Christ to be a lamb before He could be a lion. He bowed before God and did His will, and not His own. We must become meek before God before we can be strong for Christ—a lamb before a lion. As biblical Christians we must forgo the sinful pride of our reputation and gain the pride of Christ’s reputation. Religion is about doing your own thing; Christianity is about doing Christ’s thing.
Are You a Leader, or a Follower?
Religion is about being a leader, strong and defiant. Christianity is about being a follower, meek and mild. Don’t get me wrong: Jesus Christ demands that we pick up our cross and follow Him with strength and loyalty, whereas religion requires that we do society’s thing with strength and loyalty. There in itself is a glaring hypocrisy of religion; i.e., "do your own thing with strength, loyalty, and pride as long as it’s what everyone else is doing." That further hypocrisy is being observed in our public forums. Today’s society is about understanding and respecting everyone’s faith and beliefs so long as it doesn’t threaten one's perception of pride, strength, and the American dream.
Christianity is being watered down beyond being effective when it’s allowed to be mentioned at all, because, in our society, admitting weakness is a sin. Few parents want their children in school learning to be followers; instead, they want leaders like Trump and Turner—rude, prideful, rich, and successful. Religion requires that we have goodness through our own reputation and good works. Only the top of the class make it into the "club." If you aren’t healthy, wealthy and fat, you must not be living a complete benevolent life—you must do better. Christianity gives us the hard core truth about what we are--"not one of us is good, no not one, and we all fall short of the glory of God." Religion teaches that we must pull ourselves up by our boot straps to reach Utopia. Many of our rich and famous have fallen head long for this ideology. They think if they save enough people from HIV in Africa, feed enough of the homeless, and save enough babies, they will make it into heaven. Wrong. One of the bedrocks of biblical Christianity is that we do these things not in our name, but Christ’s.
Ted Turner was once quoted as saying that "Christianity is for losers." Man, did he hit the nail on the head. We are losers. That is to say that, to be a biblical Christian, we must be a loser in society’s eyes. To become a winner, we must lose all that society lives and strives for. We cannot chase the American dream of fame, fortune, and "stuff." We cannot pick our wives and husbands based on where they went to school, what they drive, wear, and make, but rather where their allegiance lies. We cannot feed the homeless or help the poor and sick with swelled chests and pride. We cannot become indulgent. We must lose our appetite for the fleshly desires that plaque this world. We must get up every morning, try with everything we are to be righteous, and swear our allegiance to our Lord, not because we can ever live up to His requirements, but rather because we know we can’t.
Worshiping in a million-dollar church with forty-thousand-dollar cars sitting in the parking lot is religion, not Christianity. Taking the words, hell, damnation, Jesus Christ, and the Old Testament out of our sermons is not biblical Christianity. Allowing homosexuals and lesbians to preach feel-good Christianity, and portraying Jesus Christ as a 60s hippie is liberal Christianity and, therefore, religion. Seeking fame and fortune with a microphone in your hand, singing about Christ and healing people in three-thousand-dollar suits is religion, not biblical Christianity. Putting the symbols of the Virgin Mary, Star of David, the prophet Muhammad, Buddha, the Masonic Lodge, and a God of erotica before Christ is not biblical Christianity but religion. Christianity is not looking at people and thinking, "They’re messed up; I’m glad I’m not messed up like that." Rather, it’s seeing the sin in their life and rebuking them with candor, truthfulness, and biblical teaching. Knowing in your heart you’ve been there, or if you trust in your own righteousness, you can fall just like they did.
Biblical Christianity is fire-and-brimstone teaching just as much as teaching the love of Christ. Feminism, liberalism, and the sexual revolution is religion from the depths of Satanic teaching, not biblical Christianity.
Making Hard Choices
Nobody said it was going to be easy. In fact, Jesus said that he did not come to "bring peace to the earth, but a sword." For many, the cost of becoming a winner in the afterlife is too great a loss on earth. Jesus underlines in the New Testament without a shadow of a doubt what must be done to gain the greatest prize—an eternity in His presence. We must turn against our family if need be, and we must acknowledge Him before man even if it means the greatest sacrifice of laying down our life. As Jesus says in Matthew 12:30, "He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters."
As biblical Christians we must take a stand in our lives and that stand is turning our backs on the person we were before God called us. It even means turning our back on those who try to pull us back into that pagan lifestyle because, truthfully folks, if God had called them that would not be their aspiration. Remember, becoming a knightly Christian is not going back to the bars, having premarital sex, and basically thinking you have received the genie called Jesus Christ who is waiting to fill your every wish. It’s not watching Sex in the City, Desperate Housewives, and viewing Internet porn. As knightly Christians we must search the word of God and see its truth, not spin its truth to fit our desires.
Forgiveness
However, as knightly Christians we must not forget an important aspect of biblical Christianity—forgiveness. In Matthew 18:35, Jesus talks about forgiveness, saying "This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart." He used the word brother for a reason. This is to mean our brothers and sisters in Christ. The Bible is clear about not intertwining nonbelievers in our lives. The pagan lifestyle has no business in the biblical Christian lifestyle. However, if God leads pagans into your life and they truly accept Jesus Christ in a biblical way, they are now your brothers and sisters in Christ, and they must be forgiven and the old lifestyle forgotten.
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