By Pastor Chris Oyakhilome
God did this because he wanted you Gentiles to understand his wonderful and glorious mystery. And the mystery is that Christ lives in you… (Colossians 1:27 CEV).
In Christianity, we haven’t embraced a religion; what we’ve actually received is God’s nature—His life. Don’t let anyone deceive you that Christianity is just one of the religions in the world; it’s not. It’s a relationship; a call to the transcendent life of glory and love. When you have a relationship with someone, that isn’t religion.
Those who describe Christianity as a religion do so because all the outward things that religious people do seem to be consistent with some of the outward things Christians do. For example, in religion, they pray, or probably have a book that they read; they also have religious rites and rituals that they follow.
READ ALSO: RHAPSODY OF REALITIES MONDAY, 26TH JUNE
In Christianity, we have sacraments like the Holy Communion, Water Baptism, etc.; yet, that doesn’t make it a religion. You can’t look at an animal and say “If it has two hands and two legs and can walk, then it is a human being”; that isn’t enough. Otherwise, gorillas and other apes will be categorized as humans.
Christianity is a real experience; it’s the active life of God in a human being; it’s Christ alive in you; it’s a real comradeship with the real and living Christ—a call to oneness with divinity: “But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit” (1 Corinthians 6:17). Hallelujah! In Christianity, we live and move in Christ (Acts 17:28); we’re members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones (Ephesians 5:30).
Colossians 1:26-27 consummates it all! It says, “Even the mystery which hath been hidden from ages and from generations…which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Christianity is Christ alive in the quarters of your heart; a real relationship with a real God. Christianity is a walk with God in righteousness. Hallelujah!
CONFESSION
Christ in me has made me an associate of the God-kind, the effulgence of God’s glory and dispenser of His goodness to my world. Christ is my life; in Him, I live, and move and have my being! I’m fruitful, productive and excellent, because I’m one with the Lord, in a real relationship, being a member of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. Blessed be God!
FURTHER STUDY:
2 Peter 1:4 (KJV); Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
1 John 5:11-12 (NIV); And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.
1 Corinthians 1:9 (KJV); God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
1-YEAR BIBLE READING PLAN
Acts 25:1-12 & Psalms 7-10
2-YEAR BIBLE READING PLAN
Luke 9:18-27 & Joshua 13