I love God, but I’m not religious. In fact, I run far away from anything that even resembles religion. If you either feel the same way I do, or you don’t understand how these statements are not contradictory, keep reading!
So how is it that Jesus is my everything, yet anything that feels remotely religious makes me want to bolt? The meaning of the word “religion” is highly debated. But for the sake of clarity, I’m going to define “religion” as a set of rules and practices as well as social expectations that are placed on persons within a specific belief system. In other words, “religion” is all about what we do, what we don’t do, how we act and how we look to others. On the other side of this we have relationship with God. Relationship with God is about just that, a relationship. It’s about knowing Him, spending time with Him, talking to Him, and hearing from Him. It’s about loving Him and knowing we’re perfectly loved by Him. Relationship with God is freeing while religion is oppressive. Galatians 5:1 says, “It is for freedom that Christ set us free”. He didn’t come to die on the cross for us so that we could remain enslaved for religion’s sake.
Religion is all about what we do while relationship with God is all about who He is. Religion puts us at the center instead of God. When we focus on religion, then it becomes about our works in order to be righteous before God. In reality, it’s all about what God has already done for us. But, as humans we like to feel that we are in control. It’s scary to feel like there’s absolutely nothing we can do to earn God’s love or grace. It requires us to have to put our full trust in Him. So we use religion to try to gain some sense of control. But it’s a false sense of control. We’re never going to be good enough on our own to deserve our salvation. Religion takes out grace and replaces it with law. Romans 8:3a says, “For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son” God already knew that we could never follow law perfectly enough to earn salvation. That’s why Jesus came.
More than anything, God desires a relationship with us. When we have a relationship with God we learn to know His heart. When we spend time with Him, we begin to see ourselves and others more and more from His perspective. When we accept what He has already done for us, we are filled with gratitude. Out of that gratitude and relationship with God comes a desire to honor Him with our choices, thoughts, and actions. We are free to live a life that worships God out of a place of pure joy rather than a place of obligation and religious rigidity.
God is a God of order. Religion tends to contradict itself and cause confusion. When you have a million rules, it’s hard to keep them all straight. Sometimes rules contradict other rules. Oftentimes, there are squabbles over the nuances of man made rules because they are based on preferences rather than God’s truth. Here’s an example of one I grew up with that you may be familiar with as well. That is that you must dress up on Sundays for church. All other days of the week we aren’t supposed to care about our appearance. But on Sunday mornings we must give God our “best” specifically through what we wear. Only during those couple hours does our external matter it seems. So which is it? Is it that God does in fact care about our sense of style and being well dressed? If so, shouldn’t that matter every day of the week? Do we only give God our best on Sundays? If He doesn’t care about our appearance, then why is “our best” appearance related? And what does “our best” even mean? Does that mean our most expensive articles of clothing? Our most dressy? Most fashion forward? When we try to play God by making up religious rules, we tend to cause chaos and confusion.
Religious rules offer a sense of safety. If we can put our trust in the rules, then we don’t have to put in the hard work of allowing God to transform our hearts and minds. Those rules are set so far away from immorality that we just have to focus on keeping most of them most of the time in order to be righteous in our minds and in the eyes of others. It becomes a focus on external actions versus internal change.
Religion also gives us the false notion that we can judge others when they don’t perfectly follow all the man made rules. Judging others may help us feel better about ourselves temporarily. But if we need to judge others to feel better about ourselves, then we have placed our identity in the wrong thing. Because of the strict guidelines and rules religion sets, it easily becomes oppressive. Anytime we make what ought to be about God about us instead, it soon turns into a war for control. And control requires submission on the other end.
I’m no theologian. I don’t always get everything right. I’ve spent years of my life trying to be religious. I failed constantly. My true journey of faith began when I stepped away from religion and into God’s freedom. The freedom to be able to fail and still be covered by His grace. The freedom to be able to live without the heavy burden of shame because Jesus already took care of my shame when He died for me on the cross. The freedom to love Him and love others like crazy because I know where my identity is found and I don’t need to put others down to elevate myself. My identity is found in who God is and who I am because of who He is.
If you’ve been caught up in religion and you’re tired, discouraged, feeling judged and questioning your beliefs, don’t give up on God! He says His burden is light! That weight you are feeling is the weight of religion. Throw that off, you don’t need it, God’s grace is already sufficient for you yesterday, today, and forever more!
What has your experience with religion been? Leave me a comment, I’d love to know.
If you want a head start in your journey to becoming the person God created you to be, I’ve made some printable journal pages that are yours for free! You can click here to download those and use them each morning to really start your day off right!
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