Encouragement

Christianity is Christ

by Lawrence Walkup 
12/23/14
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CHRISTIANITY IS CHRIST

By

Lawrence Walkup

Jesus said of himself: "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6). Jesus is the only way to reach the Father who is in heaven, and he is the only way to be reconciled to the Father while we are on earth. Jesus is not a truth, but he is the truth and therefore he can only speak the truth. He can only speak the truth of the way to reach the Father. And the only way to reach the Father is by receiving the life of Jesus that he came to give (John 10:10). Jesus gave his life for us, in order to give his life to us, in order to live his life through us (John 15:5; Gal. 2:20). Any other claims of reaching the Father apart from Jesus are inventions of man (Acts 4:12). These are nothing more than religious entities in their purest form. The religious are the ones that insisted that Jesus be put to death (Luke 23:22-23). That is very significant because it reveals how far Jesus is removed from religiosity; and therefore how far truth is removed from religiosity; and therefore how blind to the truth are the religious. The lost have a better chance of seeing the truth than do the religious. And this is exactly what happened when Jesus walked the earth.

From the onset of the Church, the Apostles were constantly fighting the religious who were out to malign the truth. And now with almost 2000 years of practice, do we think that things have gotten better or has religiosity become even more sophisticated? When Jesus walked the earth he said that the word of God is truth (John 17:17); thus revealing the Father's intent for there to be a written word on paper for man. During his time, the Old Testament was the written word that existed in which Jesus was constantly validating even as far back by mentioning Adam and Eve...for just one example (Matt. 19:4). Today we have the written word that the Apostles wrote that was also the Father's intent, and even more so because this is what we live under today. It's called the New Testament or the New Covenant. This word of God was given to us to sanctify (set us apart) us from the rest of the world. We are in this world but we are not of this world (John 17:16-17); and this word of God has been given to us from God as our authority for why we even speak; our authority for why we even live. What it says in there that we believe in is what sets us apart from the rest of the world.

The grandeur of religiosity in the world is why the lost are confused and apathetic toward God. Religiosity is so successful at distracting from the truth because within it are elements of the truth. A little bit of truth mixed with a whole bunch of error. This is the doing of the 'god of this world'...Satan (2 Cor. 4:4). This has always been his tactic as evidenced by his first human encounter...Eve (Gen 3:1-5). The greatest example of established religiosity in the world is the institution of the Catholic Church. Christianity is not the Catholic Church. There may be elements of truth within it that can cause individuals to receive the life of Christ and therefore become saved; but for the most part you have a whole bunch of error being mixed with a little bit of truth. One identifying feature of huge religious institutions that you also will find is that they are always political. In Islam, which side do you see on display the most; the religious or the political? Huge religious institutions and politics always go hand in hand. That in itself makes these institutions nothing more than another entity of the world system. The world system of which those who are of the truth are set apart from.

Ultimately, the overwhelming politicalization of the Catholic Church which resulted in the horrendous compromising of its faith is what led to the Reformation. Those who protested against the tyranny of England formed what we have today known as the Protestant Church. It is probably not as political as the Catholic Church, if it is political at all, because there are so many individual denominations of the Protestant Church. However in its haste to just be free from its enslavement, the Reformation did not quite reform enough. Christianity also is not the Protestant Church. And again, it too has elements of truth within it that can cause individuals to be saved; but for the most part its biggest problem is that it does not know which covenant it is under.

So...instead of discovering that...by reading the book of Hebrews, the book of Galatians, and the third chapter of second Corinthians; it has decided that it is going to be under both covenants at the same time. The problem with this...by doing this...is that it destroys both. Jesus himself spoke about this when addressing John's disciples in regards to mixing the old with the new (Matt. 9:16-17). What has resulted in this...is a church that is powerless and is frustrated. When you are relying on your own power instead of God's power...you are powerless. When you are striving to keep a law that you were never meant to keep in the first place; it can only result in frustration. Of course you will never see any of this frustration at the churches we attend, because we all play the game that we're OK. The frustration leads to immense anger because we really see ourselves as never being able to please God. Love is not anywhere near being in the picture. Is it any wonder why there are church splits and why so many cults come into being. This whole wretched legalistic experience is talked about by the Apostle in Romans 7:15-25. It is really too bad that we as Christians cannot believe about ourselves that there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom 8:1).

The culture of the church in this country, because the teaching is not clear cut, is a tendency to put more faith in the church, a tendency to put more faith in the act of going to church, than to put faith in Christ himself. Going to church is a time of celebration for like-minded people. Faith is not needed at church. It is needed in the world of which we are not of (1 John 5:4). And if you do not see that about yourself, then maybe it's because...as a Christian...you are still of the world. And all this could be because we have it easy. I mean really!...what kind of persecution do we ever go through that is a life or death situation? A life or death situation that would drive us to real faith. The real church is the church that is invisible. It is not a building. It is we the people. It is the bride of Christ that is made up of born again people who live all over the world. That is one reason why it is invisible. The other reason is that we as humans do not have the ability to know for sure that another person is born again. At best, we can make an educated guess and believe that guess; but God is the only one who knows for sure. This is the church that is going to be raptured off the earth someday.

To be an effective church, we need to act like Christ did when he was on the earth. He acted with such authority and confidence because he knew exactly who he was. He walked in perfect faith in the Father, that expressed itself in love (Gal. 5:6). We now as born again people are Christ too. We are the 'new creation' of Christ himself. For whatever purpose is Christ indwelling us if it is not for the purpose of living through us? We take this lightly, if we take it at all, because it is not instilled in us from the pulpit. We take it lightly that we know we are under a New Covenant, but we really don't know what that means. We don't know the significance of that in comparison to being under the Old Covenant. One is a covenant of law; the other is a covenant of grace. To be justified by the former is to be alienated from the latter (Gal. 5:4). If we want to reach the lost with a clear cut message that is not confusing, then we need to first get it right for ourselves. And when we do get it right, and only then, will the lost be able to see the goodness of God that is in us. For it is the goodness of God that leads men to repentance (Rom. 2:4). Christianity is Christ.