Religion is not Christianity…

I believe one of the greatest hinderances preventing people from getting to God is religion. Oh, the irony. The one place you ought to be able to go to learn about God, insists on adding in lots of unpleasant elements. Yes, there is plenty of talk concerning who God is as you might expect, but with that learning always comes a catch; the catch being what “you” have to do to access it. How you have to live your life. What you have to give up. What type of person you must be in order to receive from Him. And let me tell you, those requirements are endless. You will never successfully live all those added standards because you cannot do it. No one has ever been able to do it except the Lord Jesus Christ himself. And, the kicker, he came to finally rid of us of that litany of requirements to be approved before God. Yet, religion begs to differ. Religion is always focused on sin. Your sin, my sin and everyone else’s sin. It’s a veritable sin party for every miserable follower that ever got caught up in it. Finally, you can always spot religion in comparison to the truth by the subject of focus. What is the subject of focus? Is the subject always God and what He did for us or is the focus on you and what you have to do for God? That my friends, is the acid test. Religion is not Christianity.

People’s view of who God is, is always sort of shocking to me! I have compassion for them because I know they cannot go beyond what they have been taught. But, to exist thinking God is sort of repulsed with our sinful natures or surprised by some of the things we come up with, is a little crazy. Like, He doesn’t know you? Like, He hasn’t known every single persona that ever existed? I would say He is quite familiar with us. And in that, why would He want our lives to be replete with restrictions and rules and commands knowing full well we wouldn’t be able to live up to them all? The law God gave man wasn’t a punishment to man. In fact, if there was a law given that ever could give life, it would have been the law. Instead the law was given to establish a standard to which His future only begotten son could fulfill. God already knew man could not keep the law due to the sin nature in his blood. The grand plan, if you are still missing it, was to send a perfect man to live a perfect life in order to pay a price with his life, once and for all, for every imperfection that ever existed in man. Price paid. Problem resolved. Sin problem settled. Strength of sin (law) abolished. Liberty proclaimed. So my question is, if you are still a bit salty concerning me dissing religion, if the sin problem has been fully resolved forever, why on earth are you still focusing on your sins? Who or what is behind all that abhorrent focus? Sin and the focus on sin has been man’s entire problem almost forever. Going all the way back to Adam hiding in the bushes. God, in His infinite love, was restoring His creation. He never wanted obedient slaves acting out of a slavish sense of fear. My Lanta, would you want that? No folks, He fixed the damn problem for us! God wants you to live your life in the freedom He purchased for you through the life of His son. Boy, don’t you get it? Christianity is not religion.

The people who have taught you these things generally mean well. They love God and want to help Him. The problem is the help they give you is the same help that was given to them. They learned the same rules. They suffered the same deprivations in the name of the Lord. They were carefully taught, as so many of you were taught, that a relationship with God was always more focused on what you were doing than on what God has done for you. So naturally they acquiesced. They accepted it is as true. It somehow made sense. If they could just make their pesky flesh act better or if they could just clean up their skin a bit, then maybe, just maybe God would accept them. Can you not see the futility in that contest? You cannot clean that flesh up no matter how hard you work. And my God, it is hard work. It is impossible. You get saved, my friends, by accepting the Savior from sin. You accept that you could never have done it on your own. You then live your life by the finished work of Jesus Christ. It is finished. The price, your price, has been paid. So for heaven’s sake stop trying to keep paying. What, do you enjoy hardship? Once you learn the truth and can let go of all that religion, you will find that life God has prepared for you. It gives me joy thinking about it. You do not have to do all that shit to be accepted by Him. He made you acceptable in the beloved. Now you can finally live man. Now you can get your groove back ladies. All of that religion, all of those added requirements, all of these flesh focused rules and restrictions that suck the life right out of you, all of it is not a true relationship with God. It’s too empty. Religion will never be Christianity.

Once it begins to dawn on you exactly who God is, you can recognize that He is a loving Father seeking to supply all His children could ever need without asking anything of them, but to believe. No strings attached. No bait and switch. Just pure love expressing Himself in unimaginable ways. It really is no deeper than that. My wish is not that you leave your religion and come to my religion. My wish is that we could both leave religion and love each other like God intended for us to do. Put an end to all of that judgment and take what God is offering you. Christianity opposes religion.

Just some good thoughts…