All of Christianity in Two Simple Sentences

Two simple sentences capture the heart of Christian faith:

1) God in Jesus Christ entered human history for a relationship with you.

2) Your relationship with Christ encompasses your personality and entire human nature.

If you took time to read a hundred theology books drawn from the two hundred denominations within Christianity, you would find a hundred different opinions on what constitutes the Christian faith.

That’s why I want to keep it simple! 

I have led many people into personal relationships with Jesus and witnessed their surprise at his love for them. With sadness, though, I have watched some grow lukewarm later on, almost to the degree that they filled their minds with Christianese. In becoming religious they lost the adventure of walking with Christ.

I now understand that sometimes the Christian religion, while needed for presenting Christ to the world, can actually cool a person's heart toward the Lord. This shift from vital encounter to mental belief system did not occur with the disciples. They kept their personal conversations and emotional connection going with Jesus right through his Resurrection, Ascension into heaven, and indwelling in their inner cores through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Yes, they knew the same kind of fear and loneliness that you and I know. But they kept talking and praying to the Lord, entrusting him with their needs, struggles, and occasional misgivings.

So I encourage you to keep it simple. Don’t get carried away with religious nitpickiness.

Learn what you will and expand what you learn, but keep renewing your love for Christ by engaging him in lively conversations. As long as you keep straight that Christianity is not Christ, and that public images of Christ are one step removed from his personal fidelity to you, you are freed from the denominational eccentricities that pervade the Body of Christ.

As long as you commune daily with Jesus, you can read Scripture from Genesis to Revelation without becoming preoccupied by tangents (like self-consciously trying to obey a bunch of rules), or thrown off track by paradoxes that are not easily reconciled (like God’s sovereignty and the problem of evil).

You diversify your exposure to the Christian heritage and enrich your perception of God’s Being by enjoying the sensual beauty of a Catholic Mass, the rousing singing of a Baptist service, the enthusiastic celebration of a Pentecostal revival, the reverence of a Presbyterian worship service, or the relational enrichment of a home Bible study.

So let's carry on today, taking the apostle Paul at his word: "And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord's holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God (Eph 3:17-19)." 

For more on how to follow Jesus Christ, see:

Faith Beyond Church Walls: Finding Freedom In Christ