Mere Churchianity.....

John 3:2-4 (Amplified Bible)
2 Who came to Jesus at night and said to Him, Rabbi, we know and are certain that You have come from God [as] a Teacher; for no one can do these signs (these wonder works, these miracles--and produce the proofs) that You do unless God is with him.
3 Jesus answered him, I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, that unless a person is born again (anew, from above), he cannot ever see (know, be acquainted with, and experience) the kingdom of God.
4 Nicodemus said to Him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter his mother's womb again and be born? Jesus told Nicodemus he must be "born again", of course not through mere physical birth. The birth Jesus was referring to was of a spiritual nature, not physical. When we make Jesus the Lord of our lives and Saviour of our souls we are born again.

Jesus desires that we have a new life in God, through Him. Not just a recycled version of the old one. Our past, our history, who we once were is no longer relevant. We are new people, citizens of a new state, ambassadors in a strange country. The Holy Spirit is the agent of change in this process. The Great Physician does some advanced surgery to extract the new you from the old you, excising the cancerous part of what we used to be. There are some people that resist this process, in fact, many. There's a spiritual sickness that is so pervasive that people infected are unable to recognize this sickness that they are infected with. The name of this disease or virus is "sin". Some of the symptoms and stages to look for are a verbal denial characterized by statements like, "I'm a good person, I'm going to Heaven". Other symptoms sound like " well I go to church and volunteer once in while". This is not a criterion that will justify someone to get into Heaven upon death. Of course, you would expect a person to be questioning this existential dilemma to even respond. The truth today is, questions of what happens to us when we die have very little merit to folks. Philosophical questions dealing with eternity get in the way of our daily consumer routines. I like look at the subject of sin, human alienation from God, mans self rule and autonomy apart from God's intended creation as being something people are uncomfortable confronting. There is a great story here, and I have committed my life to telling it. The moral of the story is this, church will not save anyone, Christiantiy will not save anyone, only a personal relationship with Jesus is the only thing that will.

Romans 10:9-10 (The Message)

4-10 The earlier revelation was intended simply to get us ready for the Messiah, who then puts everything right for those who trust him to do it. Moses wrote that anyone who insists on using the law code to live right before God soon discovers it's not so easy—every detail of life regulated by fine print! But trusting God to shape the right living in us is a different story— no precarious climb up to heaven to recruit the Messiah, no dangerous descent into hell to rescue the Messiah. So what exactly was Moses saying? The word that saves is right here, as near as the tongue in your mouth, as close as the heart in your chest.It's the word of faith that welcomes God to go to work and set things right for us. This is the core of our preaching. Say the welcoming word to God—"Jesus is my Master"—embracing, body and soul, God's work of doing in us what he did in raising Jesus from the dead. That's it. You're not "doing" anything; you're simply calling out to God, trusting him to do it for you. That's salvation. With your whole being you embrace God setting things right, and then you say it, right out loud: "God has set everything right between him and me!"

Shalom,

Chaplain Jeremy