Religion is a combination of your love language and your worship organizer. Think about it. Whether you worship God (I pray you do), Budda, Allah, a Hindu god monkey, a tree...whatever/whoever you worship is expressed through your religion. Your religion is your language because it determines how you pray and how you praise. Are you on your knees, are you all about silent reverance, do you raise your hands and sing loud enough to reach the heavens? Do you rock, sway, sit, stand? Do you hold hands, or is there no physical contact? Your religion is your expresssion.
It is also your organizer. It dictates where, when, and with whom you worship. Do you find yourself in church twice a year (Christmas and Easter), once a week, twice a week, three times a week, or daily mass? Are you involved in fundraisers to support missionaries? Do you spend a day a month in a soup kitchen? Is there a designated time for prayer group?
All the above things are good and necessary as long as your religion determines the where and how and not your eternity. It is your PERSONAL relationship with God through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit that determines whether you will spend forever with Him. Your religion is just how you love on Him.
Here is where I think the breakdown occurs between religion and relationship. Many, many religions acknowledge Jesus Christ. Some even go so far as to declare He is the Son of God. Many religions focus on Jesus' life. We know the Gospel. We believe the Gospel. We know the story of Jesus' birth. We are familiar with the miracles. We are painfully aware of the crucifiction. We even rejoice in the resurrection story.
So far so good for many of us. Lots and lots of us know Jesus' story. We even believe it. So what's the problem? Where is the gap between knowing His story and being saved? The gap can be summed up this way: YOU KNOW THE STORY OF JESUS. NOW, HAVE YOU PRAYERFULLY AND SPECIFICALLY ASKED GOD TO FILL YOU WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT AS A DIRECT RESULT OF THE STORY?
Do you see what I am getting at? Lots of us get Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Being saved/getting saved/having a personal relationship with God is the next step. It is acknowledging AND ASKING for God to come into you, as made possible through the Holy Spirit...literally!!!
Don't you think it is ironic so many of us will say yes to Jesus being the son of God, dying, being raised, but then we doubt whether we can be filled with the Holy Spirit. We can grasp the Gospel totally, but when it comes to that part about the people in the upper room, and the flames over their heads, and their being filled with the Holy Spirit our mind starts to check out a little bit. Maybe this is not your experience. Maybe it's just me, but I don't see people rejecting Jesus as much as I do them doubting anything to do with the Holy Spirit.
Oh, that is what is so sad. That was my hang up for 30 years. I totally got Jesus, but I totally did not get that through prayer the next step was to say, "God, I believe You. I believe Your Word. Now, come into me through Your Holy Spirit." For me, this prayer and my lack of understanding how literal it was was the breakdown between religion and relationship.
Have your religion. Love it. Promote it. Learn from it, and be encouraged through it. However, don't expect to be saved by it. If your religion does not promote Bible study, in fact if your religion does not have the Bible in your own hands, how are you going to be exposed to inviting in the Holy Spirit and then living through the grace of God glorifying Him in all you do? Maybe you will stumble upon it. Maybe you will hear a song, sermon, testimony that turns the light on for you. If you are in the Word of God, you greatly increase your chances of running to the Father instead of stumbling upon Him.
Our focus should not be about bashing other religions. Our focus should be showing others/telling others we have been filled with the Holy Spirit. We are new creations. We are centered on Christ's example. We live, breathe, act by the by the grace of God. We have been saved...simply because we believed it was possible and asked to receive it.
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