Christianity is more than mere religion. It is based upon a personal relationship with Christ. But many people in church fail to ever move from religion to relationship.
Our enemy the devil has no problem with people being faithful, religious churchgoers. What he doesn’t want is for them to give their heart to Christ and to make Him the priority in their life, resulting in a personal relationship with Him.
Consider Judas, one of the Lord’s disciples. He had the greatest Preacher and Teacher in the world as his minister. He heard perhaps every message Jesus delivered. He saw the miracles Jesus did. But in the end, he died apart from God.
How sad.
Your Relationship with Christ Is a Matter of the Heart
Jesus knew what was in Judas’ heart. “Truly, truly, I say to you, that one of you will betray Me,” Jesus said at the Last Supper (John 13:21, NASB).
The disciples looked at each other, wondering whom Jesus was talking about. They had been with Judas several years. But he had them all fooled. Sometimes, you can fool the people closest to you about your relationship with Christ or the lack thereof. But the Lord always knows the condition of your heart.
According to 1 Sam. 16:7, man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart. On the outside, Judas may have looked just like the other disciples. But in his heart, he was a mess. The same thing is true about some deeply religious churchgoers today.
Judas was a good actor. When Mary anointed the feet of Jesus with costly ointment, Judas complained that the ointment could have been sold to help the poor (John 12:5).
“Now he said this, not because he was concerned about the poor, but because he was a thief, and as he had the money box, he used to pilfer what was put into it” (John 12:6, NASB).
Say what! This event did not happen at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry but at the end. After all the time he had spent with Jesus, he did not have a meaningful relationship with Christ. He was just a religious thief.
Religion vs Relationship
Now somebody might say, but Judas was hand-picked by Jesus. He left the affairs of his life to follow Jesus. For three years he came to every service Jesus held. He heard every sermon Jesus preached—or at least he was present when the sermons were preached. He witnessed the miracles Jesus did. Surely that should count for something.
But that’s exactly my point. All of the above constitutes religious activity, and religion will get you nowhere with God. In the end, only a personal relationship with Christ matters.
Judas is the prime example of the point I am trying to make. He had the best preacher, heard the best sermons and teaching, but he never came to accept Christ.
Sometimes, when I ask a person to tell me the basis of his claim to salvation, he mentions when he got baptized or how long he has been a member of a particular church. The truth is that there are people who have been going to church many years and some have been baptized more than once, but they still don’t know the Lord as their Savior.
We as church leaders sometimes send the wrong message as well. We tend to emphasize head count, members coming to church each Sunday, getting involved in so-called church work; and of course, being faithful in tithes and offerings.
I don’t mean to downplay any of that. But the ultimate goal for each church member is to have personal relationship with the Christ. We get there by trusting in what Jesus did on the cross and not what we do in church. We get there by allowing Christ to be the Lord of our life. That means we must be willing to give Him the control. We get there by talking to Him daily through prayer and allowing Him to speak to us through His Word. That’s the life that God is calling us to live.
As for Judas, the devil entered his heart to betray the Lord (John 13:27). But that wasn’t the only voice speaking to Judas. The Lord was also speaking to him. He heard Jesus preach about hell and how terrible it was. He heard Jesus preach about the need to repent and how to be saved. He saw Jesus rebuke and cast out devils, etc. Judas had many opportunities to get right with the Lord but he did not.
The same is true for us today. There are many voices out there. There is the voice of this world, the voice of the devil, the voice of our flesh, and the voice of the Lord. They are all trying to get our attention.
The question is, whose report will you believe? There is but one right answer. It is that you will believe the report of the Lord.
Copyright © 2022 by Frank King. All rights reserved.