Religion or Christ?

Just recently I was told by a dear Christian lady that she remembers hearing from Christians a generation ago that "Christianity" was a private matter.

I also heard this from my mother when I was a young believer. I desired to speak to her about spiritual matters and was shut down as though I was being rude.

My mother spent every week in the church building but never spoke to me about the Lord except on a couple of occasions when she perceived God had done a miracle for her in their finances.


As I grew in the Lord after becoming born again I realized that our entire culture growing up was moral for the most part, based on decency and rules that kept society acting in civil manners but lacked the desire to share with anyone else the gospel.

Many people gave money to missions but had no desire to be a missionary in their own country among their own families. In fact, the church-going families were very silent about the gospel if they even knew what it was. When "religion" becomes about traditions and morals but not about Christ, society loses its way.

I never heard any Christian speak of the Holy Spirit that lives in them. I never heard anyone even speak of Him at all except the preacher in the pulpits.

The wrong belief that a gathering should be hiring a one-man pastor caused the people to rely entirely on that one man, after all, it was his chosen job. The men and women sat in the pews like an audience watching a performance rather than participants in worship.

What was missing in the Christians when I was a child was fervency about Christ and testimonies of His principles. Very few Christians who attended churches every week talked about Christ outside their gathering buildings.

Often we didn't even know who was a Christian or not unless someone asked: "Which church do you attend."

As I grew in the Lord I realized that Christianity in America was more of a "social expectancy" that demonstrated a decent life rather than a dedication to Christ Himself. When I realized this I began also to realize why the country has gone the way it has, to the depth of depravity without conviction of sin.

People went to church because it was the "decent thing to do" and not because they had an abiding love for Jesus Christ.

John 15:4
"Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me."

John 8:31
"So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine;"

Galatians 2:20
"I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me."