Practical Religion

How much religion among many members of churches consists of nothing but church rituals! They belong to their church. They are baptized, married, buried in at the church, and preached to on Sundays by her ministers, but the great doctrines of truth have no place in their hearts and only a little influence on their lives. Is the religion of these people real Christianity? No, it is Churchianity – and nothing more!

If your religion is real and has been given by the Holy Spirit, it must be in your heart. It must sway the affections. It must lead the will. It must direct the tastes. It must influence the choices and decisions. It must fill the deepest, lowest, inmost seat in your soul. Is this your Christianity?

Real Christianity will cause a person to glory in Christ as the Redeemer, the Deliverer, the Priest, and the Friend – without whom he would have no hope at all. It will produce confidence in Him, love toward Him, delight in Him, and comfort in Him as the Mediator, the Food, the Light, the Life, and the Peace of the soul. This Christianity will produce in the person who has it repentance, faith, hope, love, humility, spirituality, kindness, self-denial, unselfishness, forgiveness, temperance, truthfulness, brotherly kindness, patience, and forbearance. Is this your religion?

About the Author

John Charles Ryle (1816-1900) graduated from Eton and Oxford and then pursued a career in politics, but due to lack of funds, he entered the clergy of the Church of England. He was a contemporary of Spurgeon, Moody, Mueller, and Taylor and read the great theologians like Wesley, Bunyan, Knox, Calvin, and Luther. These all influenced Ryle’s understanding and theology. Ryle began his writing career with a tract following the Great Yarmouth suspension bridge tragedy, where more than a hundred people drowned. He gained a reputation for straightforward preaching and evangelism. He travelled, preached, and wrote more than 300 pamphlets, tracts, and books, including Expository Thoughts on the Gospels, Principles for Churchmen, and Christian Leaders of the Eighteenth Century. Ryle used the royalties from his writing to pay his father’s debts, but he also felt indebted to that ruin for changing the direction of his life. He was recommended by Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli to be Bishop of Liverpool where he ended his career in 1900.