Is Jesus Enough for Your Religion?

Many church people are sincere, respectable, reliable and religious, yet have nothing God can recognize as being valid or acceptable. Are you like that? Are you religious? You are doing your best and hope to be blessed with salvation. Here’s some bad news---you are not doing enough! Who says so? God says so! You see, if Christ alone is not your only way to the Father, you have not yet come to God. No amount of religious observances on your part can compete with Christ and His finished work on behalf of His people. Jesus Himself taught, “No man comes to the Father but by me.” As long as you are trying to get to God by being religious you are still in the dark. You may think you are a worshipper but since you have missed the way to approach God, your worship, sincere as it is, cannot be acceptable, for you yourself are not yet accepted. You have failed to see the Way, the only Way…The Lord Jesus!

To have access to God, you must have the righteousness of Jesus reckoned as yours. Nothing more is needed but nothing less will do. He is enough! Therefore, you can not work your way into God's favor with a partnership between you and the Church. Try it if you like, it’s a wasted effort, it is man's religion, not God's. To try to work your way into God’s favor is to miss the mark. And just so there should be no confusion, to miss the mark is sin. To try to work your way into God’s favor is actually to contradict and fly in the face of all that God teaches. Such religious behavior has no basis in reality and no resemblance to that in which God delights.

At this point many Believers are saying Amen but the shocking facts are that many Bible believing Christians are quietly guilty of doing this very thing. They are doing religious things to try to earn peace with God. For example, they brighten up about themselves when they read their Bibles because they quietly assume that God feels better about them now that they have made their effort to be spiritual. They think they have more favor in heaven because they have had a prayer time for seven days in a row.

The problem is, when a person does anything to impress God, he is usually looking for forgiveness, favor or acceptance. But to think this way, is to turn God’s truth on its head. Listen, a true relationship with God begins, not ends, with securing forgiveness through Jesus. We need to embrace the simple truth that the only acceptable works which impress God are the works of His Son. The Father is well pleased and totally satisfied with Jesus. We do not need to try, therefore, to be accepted by works because, as believers, we have already been accepted, saved and forgiven by works ----- HIS works, not ours.

It is a hard pill to swallow but the truth is, even as believers, everything we do is flawed! But does that matter? It certainly does if you are relying on your religious performance to gain you acceptance. However, if you are relying on Christ alone, His doing and dying, His person and performance, then you can start enjoying salvation. His perfections and righteousness have now set you free to enjoy Him and glorify Him. If you truly live in the truth that Jesus is enough, then you have been delivered from the dreary treadmill of religious performance. Now, as one who has been delivered from the tyranny of having to impress God with your works, you find yourself truly liberated. It is only now, because you are free, that you can really be set apart to serve Him and to work for His glory. Only a person liberated by the Gospel can become an effective servant of Jesus.

When it comes to religion, Jesus is all we need because, the truth is, He is all we have. We all deserve condemnation but have been acquitted by mercy, love and grace working together in harmony with God’s justice. Now we are pronounced “not guilty”, not because of our religion but because of the doing and dying of the Lamb alone.

Let me ask you then, what do you have that you didn’t receive by grace? He was condemned, you got the acquittal! He suffered, you got the peace. He was put to shame, you will get the glory! He was put to death you get the abundance of life. Your sins were imputed to Him. His righteousness is imputed to you. What a deal!

Why then are you so judgmental towards yourself and others? Why do you continually beat yourself up and criticize others? Why not just get honest with Jesus and tell Him that you are a weak, frail and flawed follower? It’s time to try some honesty in your walk with Him. Let the gospel reduce you to dust and ashes. You can never earn his approval by doing religious things nor can you loose His approval by doing religious things badly. You need grace; so do I! All that we have, are, and hope for is due to the doing and dying of Christ alone. Is that kind of religion enough for you?