Don’t let religion shrink wrap your relationship with God. Show people religion and they get bored (at least after an hour). Show people the risen Jesus and they are captivated and transformed. Religion likes to interpret life. The risen Jesus wants to transform it!
To meet with a group for religious formality isn’t the same as to gather to all experience Christ’s presence and reality. Sermon-hearing often stirs up good intentions, but unless those intentions are put into immediate action, they’re soon forgotten. One obedient response to the Holy Spirit will change your life more than all the words of a thousand sermons.
Don’t follow your heart. Make your heart follow Jesus! Going to church is comfortable and easy. Following Jesus isn’t. People are often hurt by church. Perhaps that’s because one man is given too much power.
Don’t let religion be a distraction from taking Christ-like action! Avoid the attraction of inaction. The Bible says, “But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” The way to grow is to flow with the Holy Spirit. The way to stagnate is to sit and be a spectator. Religion too often creates inactive sentiment — nice feelings that go nowhere.
Religion focuses on God as history or in Heaven, but God wants to write on your heart right now. When you read the New Testament you discover that Christianity was never intended to be religious bubble wrap.
It’s not how much you do for Christ. It’s how much you let Christ do in and through you.
Jesus isn’t an absentee landlord needing clergy to run His body as an institution. He’s alive, present, and capable of running things! Churches too often let an organizational flow chart stop the flowing of the Spirit of God and replace the Headship of Christ.
