Religion vs. Christianity: Living the Difference

In this episode of the Confidence in God podcast, host Julie McGhghy explores the important distinction between religion and Christianity. Drawing from personal experiences, biblical examples, and cultural observations, Julie discusses how religion often emphasizes rule-following and earning salvation through human effort, while Christianity centers on a loving, grace-filled relationship with God made possible through Jesus Christ.

Julie addresses common misconceptions about legalism and the fear of losing salvation, encouraging listeners to move beyond a checklist mentality and embrace the freedom and confidence that comes from God’s unconditional love. The episode highlights the difference between living by rules to earn favor and living out of gratitude for God’s grace, ultimately inviting listeners to deepen their relationship with God and live with assurance in His promises. 

Wearing the Life Jacket 

https://www.amazon.com/Hey Dad 

Transcript

0:01

Hello and welcome to the Confidence in God podcast. I am your host, Julie McGhghy, and our goal today is to help you walk with confidence in God. In today's episode, we're going to look at the difference between religion and Christianity. Why you may ask. In our current American culture, I hear or read a lot about people who choose to live life very closely to biblical teachings. They may even live more restrictive than the writings of scripture requires as I mentioned in the previous episode of this podcast titled, Wearing the Life Jacket. Often what I hear or read are assertions that such people are striving to earn their salvation or are living legalistically afraid of losing their salvation if they violate any of the biblical teachings. I admit there are times Christians can easily fall into a habit of approaching their relationship with God as a checklist of things they must do or refrain from doing. When we fall into that habit, we come dangerously close to approaching our salvation as if we can earn it. Or living as if we will lose it if we don't comply with every teaching in scripture. So I want to address the difference between religion and Christianity so we can have confidence that we are living in a loving relationship with our Heavenly Father. And that we are not striving to earn salvation. In case you haven't listened to Wearing the Life Jacket, I will post a link to it in the show notes. Also, if you would like to read more about this topic, I wrote about it in chapter four of, Hey Dad, It's Me! Discover the Father Who Loves and Protects You. That book is available on Amazon, and I will drop a link to it in the show notes for your convenience. I initially began thinking about this topic a number of years ago because of a brief conversation I had with my father. He and my mother had been divorced when I was young and he and I tried to develop a father-daughter relationship after I met him for the very first time when I was 16 years old. And that relationship was always from a long distance since we never lived within 500 miles of each other. But we spoke occasionally by phone. One particular day I was excited to share with my father that I was attending a new church. It was quite different than the churches I had attended throughout my life up to that point. My father's response was,"It's okay to go to church as long as the church doesn't tell you how to live." Oh! That was like a punch to my gut. Because church was a very important part of my life and I bristled at the thought of my father not understanding that there is a difference between attending church as a part of my relationship with God and adhering to religious teaching. I began attending church when I was in junior high school, not because my parents took me to church and taught my siblings and me to live a Christian life, but because my grandmother began taking me to church on Wednesday evenings so I could be part of the youth group and the choir. Through my experience with the youth group, the choir and regular church attendance, I learned about and experienced God's love. I learned how to love Him in return. Through church, I learned how to live a Christian life. Before going into how the Christian life differs from religion, I want to briefly explain what religion is. I won't go into depths of any particular religion, not only because I am not an expert on world religions, but also because doing so would go beyond the scope of this podcast episode. Religions look at adherence to God's law found in the Bible or another book of rules as necessary to achieve some specific reward. By obeying them and complying with many other requirements, people practicing religion think they earn eternal life or some other reward. A quick internet search of religions versus Christianity reveals many sources explaining that through religion, people attempt to reach out to God or some other sacred or divine being. To become acceptable to God or to give meaning to one's life requires human effort. In the context of my father's statement, religions tell their people how to live in order to earn their eternal reward. By contrast, in Christianity salvation is not obtained through our own efforts. It is available because"God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life," as many of us are familiar with in John 3:16. Salvation is available solely by the actions of God, not by our own actions. God loves us so much that Jesus suffered the atrocities of a Roman crucifixion to reconcile us to Him, bringing us back into relationship with God. He didn't do this just so he could love us. No, he wanted a relationship with us, a two-way relationship built on love. This two-way relationship goes beyond just adhering to the letter of the law as opposed to its intent. Certainly, churches have specific doctrines and they teach people how to live according to those doctrines, but never did a church tell me how to live. Instead, they showed me God's love and taught me how to walk with Him. Because I can see how God has loved me and I can get to know Him and what pleases Him through reading the Bible, I voluntarily choose to live my life in a way that pleases Him. I choose to dress or not dress certain ways. I choose to go or not go to certain places. I choose to talk or not talk in certain ways. But the church never tells me how I must live. Consider the Ten Commandments in the Old Testament as a simple example. Through these commandments, God taught his people how he wanted them to live because he loved them and wanted to protect them. When we read the New Testament, we learn that God wants to give us abundant life. Living according to the Ten Commandments helps us live that abundant life because it helps us develop deep, healthy relationships with God, our parents and other people. It also protects us from the emotional and mental burdens of living deceitfully and striving to keep up with the Joneses. This is how God loves and protects us and how we learn to live when we regularly attend church. One example of going beyond the letter of the law is fasting, which is not addressed in the Ten Commandments. God established fasting in the Old Testament to be done on the day of Atonement, but the validity of it ceased when Jesus became the sacrifice for our sins on that cross. Yet many people today continue fasting. In scripture, there are many reasons to fast including mourning, seeking God's will when making decisions and appointing leaders, facing challenging or dangerous situations, receiving clear instruction from God, humbling oneself and asking for God's mercy, and before beginning a ministry. Although fasting goes beyond the requirements in scripture, people who fast out of their love for God do so to draw closer to Him to know His will in their lives, and seek His protection and mercy. This is part of the relationship God is seeking when He asks us to love Him with all our hearts, with all our souls, and with all our minds. Getting to the primary purpose of this episode, I acknowledge there is another way to apply biblical teachings to our lives. Some people strive to do all the Bible teaches, but they do so in order to obtain salvation. This is called legalism and gives Christianity the appearance of a religion. It connects a person's actions with achieving salvation or righteousness. When living legalistically, the person fears violating any of the commands and teachings of the Bible, because doing so would lead to losing his or her salvation. And they don't apply this view only to their own salvation. Dr. William Coker, Sr. explained in his book, Words of Endearment, the Ten Commandments as a Revelation of God's Love, that legalists of today are like the Pharisees in the New Testament waiting around,"ready to blast anyone who broke the law" and they"make life miserable for themselves and everybody else." This is likely what my father experienced that caused him to warn me against going to a church that tells me how to live. Let's return to our example of fasting, both in the Old Testament and the New Testament God confronted people for fasting for the wrong reasons. The religious people in the Old Testament and the Pharisees in the New Testament both fasted to attain their own righteousness. They did not do it out of love for God. They were not able to achieve righteousness through their own legalistic approach to God. On the other hand, in the parable of the Pharisee and the publican found in Luke 18:9-14, the tax collector loved God and humbly approached Him asking for mercy and forgiveness, recognizing God is the source of salvation, not himself. He received as a free gift of grace, the salvation of the Lord. Even today, some Christians fear losing their salvation if they violate any of the Ten Commandments, other biblical teachings or rituals established by their churches. How we approach God and seek our salvation does make a difference. We can never do anything to deserve God's grace, mercy, and salvation. Approaching God legalistically hinders our goal of spending eternity with God because it focuses on our own ability to achieve salvation. And as human beings, we do not have the strength to obey every biblical teaching without the help of the Holy Spirit and the joy of the Lord. And Legalism will not grow our love for Him. On the other hand, out of God's great mercy, He will grant a salvation when we come to Him humbly, confessing our sins and adhering to the plan of salvation established in His Word. Doing so results in our learning how to love the Lord with all our hearts, minds, and souls, and choosing our actions accordingly. Are there dos and don'ts in the Bible? Of course there are, but they are given to us by a loving Father who knows what we need in order to live an abundant life. Adopting and adhering to those dos and don'ts in our own lives because we love the Lord, is the proper approach to our relationship with God and will lead to an abundant life, deeper love for God and an eternity with Him. We can have confidence in this truth. Well, I recognize this episode was a bit heavier than what I normally post. But I so appreciate how God uses His word and His people, including those within the churches we attend, to help us develop a deep, loving relationship with Him that draws us to live according to His Word and His promptings. I pray that all Christians will develop that two-way relationship God seeks and live accordingly because of their love for Him, not in order to earn salvation or because of a fear of losing their salvation. Let me summarize this topic really quickly. As people, we may seek God in a number of ways, including through various religions or Christianity. There is a significant difference between these two approaches and the difference arises out of how we obtain salvation. The religions of the world establish rules and practices to adhere to in order to achieve salvation or their eternal reward. Christianity on the other hand, acknowledges that no person can earn salvation. Salvation is a free gift of grace from our loving heavenly Father based on the actions and suffering endured by Jesus. But even as Christians, if we are not careful, we can view the teachings of the Bible as a checklist of dos and don'ts that will cause us to lose our salvation if we do the wrong things or don't do the right things. This leads to a fearful relationship with God, which is not what he desires. So today I hope I have communicated God's love to you and His desire to be in a two-way relationship with you so you can let go of any fear of losing your salvation you may have and live with confidence in God's great grace, mercy, and salvation. I would love to hear from you. Let me know how God has spoken to you about this important topic in our lives. Share with me an example of how God has led you to walk with confidence in Him. Now, as I mentioned earlier, I will post a link to the Wearing the Life Jacket episode in case you haven't listened to it and would like to know the background for why I broached this topic in this episode. Also, if you would like to read more about this topic, I wrote about it in chapter four of, Hey Dad, It's Me! Discover the Father Who Loves and Protects You. That book is available on Amazon and I will drop a link to it in the show notes for your convenience. That's it for today. Please take a second to subscribe to our show so you'll be notified when future episodes come out. Also, it would be great if you would rate or review our show, that way more people can find out about it. Until next time, let's be confident in this that he who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it.