What is Christianity?

Christianity is first and foremost a relationship with Jesus, which leads to studentship from him, and then to a life lived based on everything that is learned. Not one or the other, but all of them, equally and altogether.

Check this out: Jesus says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, then I will come into him and will dine with him, and he with me (Rev.3:20 WEB). The relationship begins.

He also says, “No longer do I call you servants, for the servant doesn’t know what his lord does. I have called you friends, for everything that I heard from my Father, I have made known to you” (John 15:15 WEB). The studentship is revealed, for how can we know what Jesus does if we are not learning what he has made known?

And then we must put this learning into action. “Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, even as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love…. This is my commandment, that you love one another, even as I have loved you” (John 15:9,10, and 12 WEB). And verse 14, “You are my friends if you do whatever I command you,” makes it clear that knowing and doing are what identify us as his friends.

Religion is the enactment of our faith. It is not merely what we do in a church service; it is how we live what he has made known. James 1:27 shows this so very well.

So, being in a relationship with God means being his disciple, which means doing what he teaches. It seems that you cannot have one without the others and still fully participate in Christianity.

Now, here is something interesting. Do you know what you get when you only focus on one of these or the other? If you focus on the relationship to the exclusion of the others, you get feel-good mushy chaos. If you focus on the religion (the studying or the doing) to the exclusion of the others, you get cold, calculating, harsh rules and judgmentalness. Balance. You must have balance. Food for thought.

(By the way, did you notice how closely this resembles our definition of love? To be a follower of Christ is to love.)

Now, granted… granted… granted. This is very streamlined. There is much more that could be said. But at its base, this is what being a Christian is all about. And this is the lens we will look through as we consider the various topics found in the Christian faith.

For more information about this, see: Why This Lens