When I was a pastor in North Carolina, people would often ask me questions about “religion.” They generally wanted to know why there were different religions and denominations and how one could possibly know who was right. Instead of getting into all the differences between denominations and institutions, I would offer people a perspective to help them see the difference between Christianity and man-made religions.
Christianity is God’s offer of relationship with Him through Jesus’ finished work on the cross, whereas religion is the attempt to make oneself right with God by one’s own effort. But, according to the Bible, people can never do enough to be acceptable to God. It is for that very reason Jesus had to die.

Christianity is the grateful response of faith to God’s mercy in sending Jesus to take our deserved punishment at the cross. Therefore, Christianity is NOT just another religion.

The confusion surrounding denominations and religions tends to obscure the real need in people’s lives. They desperately need to have loving, close ties with others and to find forgiveness from God. Christianity satisfies these relational needs. There is nothing more important to people in the long run than to be loved and accepted; to belong. Religion can never meet those needs.

Our greatest need is to have unhindered fellowship with God Himself. That is why Christ secured our salvation from sin. We can be in God’s Holy presence because we are made righteous in Christ. People are incapable of making themselves righteous.

The problem of our relationship to God is addressed in our lives by God Himself as we are taken out of our broken
attempts to belong and be loved and are restored to a full, loving, harmonious union with God (Who is Love Himself). This is accomplished by Christ’s sacrifice on the cross which makes possible the giving of righteousness as a gift to those who believe.

Paul writes of the Jews of his time who were unquestionably religious in Romans 10: 2-4:

For I can testify about them that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not based on knowledge.  Since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.

Paul speaks of a religious zeal for God, but a fundamental error was their attempt to establish their own righteousness, apart from God. God’s righteousness in Christ demands we acknowledge his mercy and receive forgiveness. It is an acceptance of the truth that we have no righteousness of our own. Righteousness is credited to the one “who believes.”

Our relationship with God therefore becomes one of gratitude for God’s great kindness and mercy toward us. There is only acceptance of salvation from the penalty of sin and surrender to our Savior who is also our Lord, no religious duties, no attempt at scoring points with God at all.

The religious question (how can I be acceptable to God?), then, comes down not to what I have done, but Who I know and love–my relationship with Jesus Christ. These matters are at the center of Biblical Christianity, which offers a love relationship with the creator God to anyone who receives it by faith.

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