What would it look like if we were to break down all our walls? All the walls we have constructed through the years. These walls of religion we have erected to define God, describe our beliefs, and dictate what a relationship with God should look like.
When we define something, we create a box for the thing we defined. We set the limits and parameters of this something by the words we associate with it. We do this accurately for things that are observable, things that we can control and understand; for things that we can hold with our own two hands or behold with our two eyes. We also try and define things that we have only the slightest understanding of. And when we try and set limits to things that we cannot truly define we do a great disservice; not just to the something that we are defining but also to ourselves and anyone who grabs a hold of this partial definition.
Let’s take religion for example. Religion is defined as the service or worship of God or the supernatural through a personal set or institutionalized system of attitudes, beliefs and practices that are considered sacred.
Religion is constantly used to describe or categorize Christianity; however, it is rarely used in the bible. The most popular verse concerning religion in the bible is found in James, “to visit orphans and widows, and keep yourself unstained from the world.” The bible defines this type of religion as ceremonial observance or sacred discipline.
This is what has happened with Christianity. From the moment the Church took on the identity of “Christian”, limits, rules and boxes were made- by no fault of anyone. Because, again, when something is defined or titled lines are drawn, and boxes are formed to help easily define the something. Now that someone has the title of “Christian” they now must act, behave and talk like one who belongs in this category. Within this box culture is made and traditions are passed along.
Before long, being a “Christian” is more about following a culture or set of traditions more than it is about actually following Jesus. This is where much backlash begins. When something is labeled and boxed a reputation, expectation, and assumption is made about the something that’s been boxed by people on the outside of it. And when something has grown to look like something it was never meant to look like then the something becomes a target of ridicule, judgment and slander- things like, “I like this Jesus but hate His Christians” begin to be said.
This is best exampled by the Pharisees in the bible. The Pharisees were the leading scholars of the Jewish writings. They were the teachers and upholders of the law of Moses. They were the leaders and operators of the temples and ultimately the ones who would have Jesus crucified. This is always a humbling reminder for me, the very ones who taught and knew the ancient writings and prophecies better than anyone else missed the very person all their memorized scriptures were talking about. And not just missed but judged Him a blasphemer worthy of crucifixion.
The Pharisees had become so caught up in the culture and traditions of being a Jew, of being a Pharisee that they began to trust and follow tradition more than trusting and following God, and when we trust and follow culture and tradition instead of God, we will miss Jesus. When a Christian is missing Jesus but continues to call themselves a Christian a horrible disservice is done for the whole Church and not only to the Church but a disservice to Jesus and His cross as well.
This all being the result of conforming ourselves into the image of a category, a title, a word; instead of being conformed by the Word into the image of Jesus. Christians have trapped themselves inside of a religious shaped box that is becoming more lukewarm by the day and if something isn’t done about it, when Jesus returns, He will quickly vomit them out of His mouth.
The greats, the fathers of faith throughout the bible never labeled themselves or put themselves under a title that boxed them in. They simply followed God and were obedient to His leadings. They humbled themselves before Him and trusted in Him and Him alone. They were in relationship with Him and their faith in Him was credited to them as righteousness.
“That’s why it is about relationship and not about religion” you may say. I would agree with you in part. However, just like the term Christian, we can be boxed in by this saying as well. If we are not careful, when we say it’s about relationship, we can begin to treat our fellowship with God as common, like any other relationship. We set up expectations or treat God as if He were just another one of our friends. For those that may be a little more serious, they treat Him like they are married to Him. This may sound good but often the relationship is still defined by us, by what we think relationships should look like, by what we think is good.
We then run into an even worse problem; we treat the Holy as common! We begin to treat God as if He is not much different than one of us. We treat Him as if He isn’t Holy and completely set apart from all things in this world. We treat Him as if He isn’t deserving of every beat of our heart, drop of sweat from our brow, or ounce of blood in our body. We treat Him as if He isn’t the most terrifying Being in and outside of creation deserving not just our utmost respect and reverence but our fear as well.
We are to be in relationship with God though. But more so than relationship, we are called to be in unity with Him, to be one with Him. We are called to have our souls hidden within the very Spirit of God. Where His thoughts become our thoughts, His ways become our ways, and we only do what we see Him doing. Our life becomes an expression of His will, instruments to be used for righteousness. We become His bewedded servants, showing our love and devotion to Him through our acts of obedience.
A relationship with God is dictated solely on what Jesus says. He is the only way to God and thus He dictates what a relationship with Him is supposed to look like. I believe this is why the early apostles described themselves as being followers of “The Way”. They were following Jesus how He said to follow Him, no matter what it looked like and no matter where it would take them.
If we want a relationship with Jesus our attitude must be the same. We must break down the religious walls that have kept us hostage so we can freely and boldly follow Jesus. We need to go back to the beginning where it is all about Him and not about our culture or traditions. We need to make ourselves available to be used to fulfill His will. We must be willing to lay our life down for the glory and honor of our Bridegroom!
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