Mere Churchianity

Many religious people seem content to live in a state of “Churchianity” rather than Christianity.

While Christianity calls people into a living, dynamic relationship with their Creator,  Churchianity marries its adherents to a set of religious customs and traditions.  Christianity is a relationship built on the highest imaginable form of love — Churchianity is an empty life consisting of Sunday religion and spiritual showmanship.

Christianity consumes everything about an individual's life and future — completely remaking him into the type of person God created him to be. Churchianity lets a sinful person stay just as he is, without affecting any type of lasting life change.

Christianity brings freedom, victory, power, and purpose for living. Churchianity brings only a dry, external form of godliness, one that denies God's power, plan, and Lordship.

Jesus said that at the final Judgment, there will be multitudes who cry “Lord, Lord! Didn't we do all sorts of good things in your name?” (Matthew 7:21-23) They lived so close to the truth that the rejection by God came as a total shock. They thought they had genuine Christianity; instead, they possessed mere Churchianity — a sad substitute for the real thing. And more than a substitute, Churchianity is a great evil, responsible for millions of sincerely deceived and eternally-lost souls.

“If conversion to Christianity makes no improvement in a man's outward actions -- if he continues to be just as snobbish or spiteful or envious or ambitious as he was before -- then I think we must suspect that his ‘conversion' was largely imaginary…Fine feelings, new insights, greater interest in ‘religion' mean nothing unless they make our actual behavior better; just as in an illness ‘feeling better' is not much good if the thermometer shows that your temperature is still going up. In that sense the outer world is quite right to judge Christianity by results. A tree is known by its fruit…” (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity)

Meditation: Matthew 7:13-23

Challenge: Do you have ‘religion,' or do you have a real relationship with your Creator? What evidence could you point to in your own life to show that you have more than mere Churchianity?

Comments

[Chanel New Bags]

Thank you and good luck.