Christianity is not religion

You see, Christianity is much different than any 'religion' in the world. As a matter of fact, most Christians would say they are not involved in religion at all. Religion is about man seeking out a 'god', reaching up and hoping to find him, going about rituals and routines every day(or week), and hoping you "meet your quota" of good deeds so that you may speak with your 'god'.

Many would use the analogy of a mountain and say a 'god' is at the top of a mountain, and all Religions are pursuing the same 'god', they are just taking different routes up that mountain. David Platt mentions in his book titled Radical that Christianity is about our God coming down from that mountain and reaching out to us.

There is absolutely nothing we can do in and of ourselves to reach God. People have this idea that the better life they live the further up the mountain they will get towards God. This is not true at all, God himself says from the beginning "..every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood.." (Genesis 8:21b NIV). We as people are all evil. Another time in the New Testament Jesus says to a pharisee that approaches him "No one is good—except God alone" (Mark 10:1 NIV). We are all evil. This would mean that trying to reach Him by doing a certain amount of "necessary rituals" or "needed prayers" is pointless! We are evil, and nothing do qualifies us to reach the top of the mountain.

The beauty of it all:

"But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. ⁹Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him!" (Romans 5:8-9 NIV)

lets go though this piece by piece:

(Keep in mind this is directed towards a group of Christians)

1 - God demonstrated his love by coming down to earth.
2 - We were sinners. We were evil, we did wrong.
3 - We are JUSTIFIED by Christs blood
4 - We are free from God's wrath

I myself, as well as all other Christians are justified - NOT BECAUSE OF ANYTHING WE HAVE DONE - but because of Christ. Our relationship with Christ begins here. It doesn't stop here, as some Christians may think. We have a relationship with our Lord, this is not some silly religion folks. This is a true opportunity we have.

In Religion, people do good to try to earn something, or to reach something. In a relationship however, there is love. We need to love our God, and love our Lord, and thank Him continually for what he has done. He exchanged his righteousness for our sin. We are JUSTIFIED.

So where do the good deeds come in? Why pray? Why take communion? Why worship God? Why follow the principals of His Word?

Here is it:

"If you love me, you will obey what I command" (John 14:15 NIV)

We are to love God, and love others.

My hope with this is not o get attention, as a matter of fact, i encourage you to research this topic yourself because there are so many people that explain things things much better than I. My hope is that those who think we as Christians are part of some religion that is tryingto be "good enough for God" would see the truth: No one is 'good enough for God', He offers himself because He is whats best for us.