Religion is man’s attempt to gain God’s grace by doing something that he or she thinks will satisfy God enough to let him or her into heaven. Christianity is doing absolutely nothing but believing by faith alone that Jesus Christ did absolutely everything required by God the Father to pay the price for our sins.

The latter goes against mankind’s nature, and so it is when it comes to the gospel of grace. The gospel of grace is diametrically opposed not only to mankind’s nature but to the world itself and everything it has to offer.

In any religion, it always comes down to an individual doing something! If you do something to fit a prescribed theology—to modify your behavior and the way you think—then you might be doing just enough to make it to heaven.

Christianity, on the other hand, requires a person to do nothing for salvation but believe by faith alone that Jesus Christ shed His blood and died for our sins on the cross, was buried, and rose from the dead never to die again. God’s promise, as a response to that person’s faith in that good news, is salvation. But it doesn’t end there; God immediately steps into the person’s life by indwelling them with the Holy Spirit, changing the person from the inside out. They are a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Religion does not provide a transformation of the heart or the assurance of an eternity with our Lord and Savior. Instead, it offers only the desperate hope that one’s works will be sufficient for admission into heaven.

The horror of religion!

Christianity is supernatural, transformative, and powerful.

For the believer, it is the gospel of grace and God’s grace that transform us, working through the Word of God.

Titus 2:11-12a
“For the grace of God that bringeth salvation has appeared unto all men. (In other words, not just a select few, or the most religious all mankind.)

Here it is in the next verse: what God’s grace is teaching Christians through His Word. It is 12. Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts (that because our sin nature has been nailed to the cross we now can deny which at one time we could not), we should live soberly, (in other words not living a superficial or frivolous lifestyle) righteously, (In other words, we are always striving to do that which is right before God as well as before our fellow man) and godly,…”That’s a small “g.” Simply means the very opposite of living according to the god of this world and this wicked world system. As Christians, we live according to the doctrines of grace and all the teachings clearly laid in the Word of God.

Titus 2:12b
“…in this present world;” That means NOW in the world, every minute of every day, not just on Sundays.

For the believer, we have the indwelling Holy Spirit living inside us as our moral anchor (Galatians 5:18,22,25; Romans 8:4,5), and it is through love that we fulfill the law (Romans 13:8; Galatians 5:14). Not a list of rules on a wall at home or on a desk at work constantly reminding us not to do this and not to do that (Galatians 3:10).

Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.

Galatians 5:1