I define ‘religion’ as any belief system that requires a person’s self-effort to find, please and/or serve God, out of one’s own meager human resources.

By comparison, true Christianity is not a religion of man’s doing at all. Rather, it is a living relationship with God, whereby God is the real ‘doer,’ who Himself made a just and righteous way of resolving the incompatibility between lost and fallen and the Holy God of All … via the Cross-work of His Son. This is the work of God who saves man from perdition [judgment] and supplies all believers with Christ’s eternal resurrection life to dwell within them.

God is working in and through believers, “both to will and to do of His (God’s) good pleasure’ (Philip 2:13, 1:6). God is the lover of man and giver of His life to man (Jn. 3:16, Col 3:4). God’s life comes to man, “in Christ,” as “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:2a), which received “by grace, through faith” in the working of God via Christ’s Cross. Christ’s “Spirit of life” may be “received” (Jn. 1:12) by faith, then to be effective in our life only by our trusting faith (Eph 2:8-9). Such trusting faith is effective regardless of one’s past, present performance or condition. Thereby all believers are equipped to live the Christian life by the very life and power of Christ within them, within their human “spirit of man” (1Cor 6:17, Jn 3:6, Zech 12:1).

Christians must learn to “trust” the Lord to the extent of yielding (Rom. 6:19) to embrace a new way of living by the truth of the word and the ‘spontaneous sense’ of the indwelling Spirit who prompts, permits, and restrains us. We must stop our independent self-honoring good works of self-effort; now to rely upon Christ leading us. We honor Him by doing His will as we co-operate with Him who now is “our life” (Col 3:4, Gal 2:20). Simply put; ‘Christ is The Christian within us!’ (Gal. 2:20).

Religion tells us that we must make our Christian life work properly, in order to please God. As soon as we are saved, they usually put us to work to fix ourselves, erroneously telling we should be like Jesus, implying that if we try, we can make ourselves “like” Him. Religion, with its reliance upon self-effort, is diametrically opposite of true Christianity, which is based upon the believer’s utter dependence upon Christ’s life within.

Religion is based on false religious concepts, usually built upon misinterpretations of scripture, often dating to pagan practices. Much of that misinterpretation is due to ignoring the Apostle assigned by God “to the Gentiles,” Paul, and his “gospel of the grace of God” versus “the works of the law.” Paul admonishes believers to be of those who are “rightly dividing the word of truth” (2Tim 2:15, cf. Rom 5:4, 11:6). Paul’s gospel is the grace of God at work within the believer. “To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ IN You, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27)

Neo-Evangelicalism: Humanism prevails in secular society today; it’s the idea that man in himself can make life work. This arrogance has led us into the godless society we see in America and the modern world. It’s a similar subtlety that makes the new evangelicalism (neo-evangelicalism) to be a sort of humanism. It is the humanistic instruction of religion that takes us away from trusting God’s ongoing work in and through us. Neo-evangelicalism presumes that you of yourself can make your Christian life work for you if you… just follow their program. They say you who must try to do the works of God for God on His behalf. “You must pray enough, have faith enough, and work enough to please God or… God then will not bless you.” This approach rejects His cross and ongoing work in our life by the provision of ‘His life.’ Paul wrote; “You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen from grace.” (Gal. 5:4 (AMP)

Religion says; “You can be spiritual and holy if you work hard, go to enough Christian seminars, fast, pray, and keep the vows you make to God.” The mantra falsely promoted today is “What would Jesus do?” as though we can of our self, imitate Jesus. There is no need to imitate or copy Jesus, since we now have the resurrected Christ indwelling us all the time, leading and empowering us to live … as He wills. Self-effort to make yourself holy will never work - it is only by trusting and relying upon “Christ in you” to work in and through you, that we have the hope for becoming the glorious expression of His life. Thus, we simply must co-operate by trusting Him in us. Jesus said the believer’s burden should not be heavy. Hebrews 4 says the object is to come to a “rest” – a rest that is not outward, but rather found in relying upon Him who is in our life. “he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works …” (Heb. 4:10). The way of the Christian life is in rest, which only comes from letting go to trust the hand and work of God in you and your life as you encounter the circumstances of life. To trust God is to believe and receive the love and grace of God that works in your life in the midst of all the difficult circumstances and situations of life.