Secondhand Christianity creates religious spectators. Firsthand faith produces Spirit-led Christ-followers. God’s more concerned with what you do the remaining 167 hours per week than with what you do for one hour on Sunday morning.

Hand-me-down Christianity is never as powerful as firsthand interaction with Jesus. Sermon-hearing and church programs are forms of hand-me-down Christianity that don’t require any actual interaction with Jesus. Toss out your religious hand-me-downs and begin to seek God and read the Bible for yourself! Be taught and led by the Spirit.

Secondhand Christianity is taught from mind to mind. Firsthand faith is more caught by the heart than taught by the brain. Religious hand-me-downs often entrap us in casual Christianity and prevent us from having frequent firsthand experiences with Jesus.

Hand-me-down Christianity is propagated by religious institutions. Firsthand faith is birthed in a human heart by God’s Spirit. Secondhand religion is a sedative. Firsthand faith stirs up the fire of God. Religious hand-me-downs may be comfortable but many of them block God’s light from our heart.

What a preacher tells you is hand-me-down Christianity. What the living Jesus tells you is first-hand faith! Jesus says this about religious hand-me-downs. “You nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition.”

Jesus wants to give you a living relationship with Him, not second-hand religion! Let Jesus make you a new creature in Christ, not a religious hand-me-down.

Beliefs about God are frequently religious hand-me-downs rather than resounding revelation. Which are your beliefs? If you’ve accepted all the religious beliefs you were taught by a church without questioning them and seeking God yourself, you have religious hand-me-downs.

How I lost my hand-me-down religion: I experienced a most unusual “if” thought once while sitting through a sermon as a teenager: “If you were born a Hindu what would you be today?” After pondering it I realized that I would have been a Hindu. Another thought rapidly followed: “Why do you think you’re a Christian?” In a flash I realized that my Christian beliefs were just hand-me-down cultural religion that I had blindly accepted. That revelation made me hungry for reality, so I asked God to show me the truth. About two years later I had a personal encounter with the risen Jesus that filled me with unrelenting passion to follow and obey Him.