Microsoft Word - ChristianityNotReligionBkMSS.doc

(WallPaper) #1

religious methodology of recruitment by propaganda in
order to “bind, tie and attach” increasing numbers of people
to the propositional ideology, the activistic cause, and the
sociological organization they represent. Their
contemporary marketing procedures of “church growth”
reveal that they know nothing of the experience of the
dynamic of the grace of God expressed in the living Lord
Jesus by His Spirit.
Genuine evangelism is witnessing to the “good news”
of the life of Jesus Christ as He comes to indwell us by His
Spirit and live out the divine character in our behavior in
contrast to the performance of religion. When an individual
can see the impotence of religion, having experienced the
frustration of religious performance, then the grace of God
in Jesus Christ will be “good news” indeed. Such was
Paul’s testimony in Philippians 3:2-14 when he identified
religion as a “total loss” and “nothing but rubbish,” but
rejoiced in his personal and spiritual identification with the
living Lord Jesus.
Understanding the difference between Christianity and
religion will make all the difference in the world in the way
that we engage in evangelism. Rather than presenting
unbelievers with a package of doctrine to believe in, or a

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