Peripherally Faithful

Looking for faith in all the wrong places, the Mistaken venture forth to attempt to seize, in their grasp, the hand of God. To see His face with their eyes. To hear His voice, experience His presence, to know Him...on their terms.
Faith is a gift from God, and it is repellent and repulsive to hear the Mistaken claim that they are Christians, just the same as those chosen by God.
But they don't have the faith that is supernaturally gifted by God. So they have nothing. They have faith, indeed, in lesser things, such as being born into a family of Christians, receiving Salvation by being baptized, seeking relics/signs, pegging their faith to what they can see, hear, touch.
Lost.
The Mistaken believe that they can receive God's Blessing by doing something. Even though they have not been chosen by God, they have been assured by their families and churches (who are also lost, blind leading blind) that God's arm can be twisted. That by doing certain works, no matter whether or not they repent of their sins, God can be made to accept them. That they can by their own efforts somehow generate righteousness good enough to win God's favor.
The Mistaken have been lied to all of their lives, and they often reject the truth of the Gospel when confronted with their need for Salvation.
"I'm a Christian, too!" One recently told me.
"We have an unbroken chain of Popes all the way back to Peter!" Said another.
There, I've tipped my hand-you might have thought I was talking about the Pentecostals, who seek after gifts and signs as earnestly as the crowds following Jesus in His day. Some other time.
The Mistaken are not collected under the single umbrella of one denomination. It's raining brollys. 
Faith in churches will send you to hell just as quickly as faith in Islam.
May God 'wake you up' to your actual condition and need for true Faith.