Christianity in a Nutshell - Part 1

At its heart, the Christian faith is not a religion. It is a Person. Rules and rituals may be important, but they are not at the heart of Christian discipleship or church life. It is the relationship with the Person of Jesus that is the soul of Christianity. Everything else is built on this. When we know Jesus, we also come to know the Father and be connected with His Spirit.

Eternal life, as defined by Jesus, is the personal and relational knowledge of God the Father and God the Son. We come into the relationship when the Triune God makes His residence in our hearts. By relating to Jesus, we are introduced to the Trinity and the life of the Triune God.

Jesus must therefore be at the centre of our discipleship. We remember what the Lord said about Himself: “I am the way, the truth and the life” (John 14:6). This is radically different from usual conceptions of the religious life. Even some Christians who regularly attend church fail to grasp this.

Let’s think about religious ways. It is common to think of salvation and well-being in terms of finding and employing spiritual methods. We think that we can live a relatively trouble-free life and finally reach heaven by following a spiritual prescription. Find a better way to pray. Look for a new church. Try a new 10-step programme, or the latest spiritual technique. But the heart of the Christian life does not belong to prescriptions or programmes, but a Person.

It is possible to be busy pursuing spiritual methods instead of following Jesus. Beware: religious busyness is not equivalent to knowing God. We need to note the warning of Jesus in Matthew 7:21-23: that the ultimate test will not be how religious we have been or how full our calendars were, but whether He knows us (and whether we know Him). The great separation of people will be between those who have pursued religious ways and those who have pursued Jesus, the Way.

For some Christians, the essence of religion is knowing precepts and principles, doctrines and creeds. Not that they are unimportant, but they do not lie at the heart of the Christian life. Truth is ultimately a Person. No amount of information and factual knowledge can substitute knowing Jesus in a personal relationship with Him.

Some Christians wrongly focus their attention on gathering facts and information instead of meeting with Jesus and listening carefully to Him through His Word. It is possible to know the Bible quite well and yet fail to know Jesus. There are people who know the Bible as literature and develop skills to analyse the Bible. But these are useless if they do not lead to knowing Jesus intimately. Of course, Bible reading and meditation are essential Christian disciplines, but they must be

done in the light of an ongoing relationship with Jesus, in His presence. We must read our Bibles in order to find Him, the Truth.

Discussion Questions:

Do you agree that at the heart of the Christian faith is a Person (Jesus) and that rules and rituals should not replace the essential relationship that we should be developing with Jesus? How does knowing Jesus in an intimate relationship help us to know the Father (John 14:9-10), and what role does the Holy Spirit play in

this relationship (Ephesians 2:18)?