What is the Difference Between a Spiritual Christian and a Religious Christian?

According to the Bible, to be spiritual is to walk by the Spirit of God and not according to human reasoning. It means to truly practice the fruit of the Spirit which are mentioned in the Bible.

The fruit in the Bible are listed as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. In other words, to be spiritual is to make decisions according the Spirit of God and not according to human understanding.

To be religious, according to the Bible, is to practice outwardly what isn't true inside, to be hypocritical. This is clearly stated in the Bible.

I grew up in a family of pagans who went to church. I wasn't a pagan. I was and still am a Christian believer. We went to several different Christian denominations during my childhood and adolescence.

The different denominations often disagree with each other. Some also teach opposing doctrines and absolutely insist that their instruction is the only way into God's grace and into Heaven. They believe that the others are heretical in their teaching and will lead their followers to hell.

I learned to keep my mouth shut on differences and to read my Bible for myself. I wanted to see what God has to say about the different teachings.

I didn't learn about the different doctrinal teachings because the Bible doesn't talk about them. But I did learn about how to do what I say, which is the core of being a truly spiritual Christian, according to God's definition as written in the Bible.

The Bible tells me to love my neighbor as myself. This meant that I had to learn how to love myself and then sacrifice that love of myself for another above my own self-interest.

According to the Bible the world would know who God's true followers were by how much we love each other. That meant I had to love and be kind to fellow believers even though they might be trying to condemn me to hell, trying to kick me out of their church and calling me all kinds of untrue names. It meant I had to forgive them no matter what they did to me.

The Bible shows me I am in a covenant or contractual relationship with God. This means that what I have promised to do I need to do or be a liar. That also puts me in a covenant position with my fellow human beings.

What I say I will do, I need to do or explain why I can't. This is true for my dealing with both fellow believers and nonbelievers alike. I haven't found anything in the Bible that has told me to discriminate against nonbelievers.

In fact, the Bible tells me to give to those who are not going to give back to me over those who can and most likely would give back to me. I'm not to look for my own gain in any situation I may find myself in.

I remember, when I was young, I was speaking to a nonbeliever about what he needed to do to walk with God I told him that he needed to do as I was doing. He stopped me dead in my tracks when he countered with "You're not doing what you say you're doing.". He was right. I was just repeating what I was taught to say. I'd not been taught how to walk it before I told it.

I stopped telling others how to do what I wasn't doing as if I were doing it. But it took me a long time before I could truthfully say that what I was telling others to do I was also doing because it took a long time to learn how to.

The Bible instructs me to learn to know God, to love Him and to trust Him. That's much easier said than done because it requires me to sacrifice my self-interest, to go where no man would prefer to go and to go where it hurts.

It hurts to trust. It hurts to love and it hurts to learn to know about God. To know God we must learn to trust and to love Him beyond our human understanding, and beyond our own current situation that might be extremely scary.

To be truly spiritual, as a Christian, means to actually do what I have said I will do. It means that I am truly doing as the Bible teaches that I ought to do.

To be religious, as a Christian, means to go through the motions of appearing to be doing what the Bible has told me to do. It means that I am claiming to be doing what I am not actually doing. But in reality I'm not really doing it.

Sources:

http://biblebrowser.com/galatians/5-16.htm

http://biblebrowser.com/galatians/5-22.htm

http://biblebrowser.com/matthew/23-28.htm

http://bible.cc/james/2-8.htm

http://bible.cc/john/13-35.htm

http://bible.cc/2_corinthians/1-18.htm

http://bible.cc/acts/20-35.htm

http://biblebrowser.com/jeremiah/9-23.htm