Robert Louis Stevenson once said, “I’ve been to church but I was not depressed.” Isn’t it strange that religion tends to make people, even brilliant people, expect to feel depressed and fed up*
During the last two days I’ve been explaining the kind of religion that I get fed up with and the kind that really turns me on, and I suppose the difference is just this. In one case it’s a kind of human rigmarole, a performance, when the church is a club, withdrawn from life into what we think is a safe position. Or even worse, a kind of close-minded bigotry, which damns everyone and everything it doesn’t agree with.
Now the religion of Christ is nothing like this. It’s dynamic because, what it demands of people, God supplies the power to become. The dominant notes of the authentic Christian faith are glad praise, outgoing love, and a sense of joy. Yes, of course it makes stern demands, of course it costs blood and tears and money, but dull, never, not the real thing; bigoted, never, not the real thing. It depends upon your personal surrender to Christ and your personal battle with evil all around you and within you. And whatever else it is, exhilarating, challenging, demanding, but never depressing.
“Put on the whole armour of God”. If you don’t know what that is, read Ephesians Chapter 6 from verse 10 onwards