Why I'm Against Religion

Sometimes people are taken aback when they hear me say that I'm against religion. That's the last thing that they'd expect to hear a professing follower of Jesus Christ say, and even more true of a pastor. Why am I against religion? It really a simple answer. It's because of what it is and what it does to people.

Religion began in the garden of Eden when Eve believed the lie that there was something she could do to cause herself to become more like God. The serpent told her that if she ate from the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good & Evil, she would become like God. There was one big problem with that lie. She was already like God. Her Creator had made her in His image.

But, believing the lie she ate the forbidden fruit and her husband soon followed suit. Because this was the first man, the physical AND spiritual DNA of all humanity was inside Adam. So we inherited two serious congenital problems from him. The first was a sin nature and the other was a built in affinity for religion.

People generally don't have a problem believing it's true that the sin issue began in the garden, but they find it hard to believe that religion is a result of the fall. However, it was. The second religious step Adam and Eve took was to make coverings for themselves with leaves so they wouldn't feel ashamed in front of God. Religion still causes feelings of shame and still motivates people to try to do something on their own to make themselves more presentable to God. All over the world today, religions of every kind are nothing less than man's attempt to make himself acceptable to a god he wrongly imagines is judging and looking down on Him.

Remember - it was religious people who harassed and ultimately crucified Jesus. Why? Because He refused to jump through their religious hoops. Jesus Christ isn't religious. Never has been, never will be.

The word "religion" comes from the old Latin word, religare, meaning "to bind up." It points people toward obligations they have toward a deity. So the essence of the word is that it puts people into bondage and causes them to feel condemnation for not measuring up.

The authentic message of the gospel of grace is largely absent in the religious climate of the church world today. The gospel of grace is the proclamation that our God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit have come down to this world, dealt with sin once and for all and have reconciled us back to God. Sin has been dealt with and has been forgiven! That is the truth of the gospel! Our privilege is to proclaim that reality to the world and encourage them to simply believe it so that the objective reality of the finished work of Christ becomes a subjective reality in their own experience.

Religion blinds people to the gospel by causing them to think there's something that God expects from them. There isn't! He has done everything that needed to be done. The only thing left for us is to say "thank you!" in faith and enjoy the eternal ride!

Christ Jesus didn't just set you free from sin. He set you free from religion too. You don't have to perform to score points with your Father. It's all good because of what He has done on your behalf. So, when you see religion - run from it, but be sure you run straight into the arms of your Father who loves and accepts you just the way you are at this very moment.

Resting In Christ

It is amazing how the default setting in contemporary Christian culture tends to oppose the concept of spiritual rest when that is exactly what Jesus promised to give those who follow Him. (See Matthew 11:28-30) This concept requires a new mind set for most people, especially in western culture. We live in a society where people go on vacation with their Blackberrys and laptops. To rest in Christ, trusting Him to express His life through us sounds lazy and negligent after having lived in the wilderness of rigorous religion for such a long time. Many mistakenly think of rest as some sort of passivity, which it is not. Resting simply means to trust Jesus Christ as our Life-Source, depending upon Him to empower our actions with His strength and direction.

For many years the concept of rest was so foreign to me that I couldn’t comprehend it. I didn’t know rest was a gift from God. I thought it was a sin. I sincerely believed that the only time we would find complete rest was when we died and went to heaven. There was a verse I used to read at funeral services to give comfort to bereaved families. I would share Hebrews 4:10 with them: “For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His.”

When I shared this verse, I would tenderly point out that our beloved friend who had died “has now entered into God’s rest and ceased from his own labors.” I talked about how heaven is a place where there are no more struggles. It is a place where we simply rest in Christ and enjoy Him forever.

Entering into His rest and ceasing from our own works. It sounded like dying and going to heaven to me. Then one day I read the next verse in the passage — Hebrews 4:11 says, “Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall down through following the example of disobedience.” What? Be diligent to enter that rest? Now I was in trouble. I had always taught that rest means dying. Now here I was being confronted with the verse that says to be diligent to enter that rest or else I would be disobedient to God. I knew I had better go back and reexamine that verse again and hope that my interpretation had been wrong or else I was in serious trouble! I didn’t know at the time that I had already died with Christ and was able to cease from my own works.

“I understand that salvation is a gift, but when we become a Christian we do have certain responsibilities in living the Christian life, don’t we?” somebody asked me. “We don’t just sit back and coast to heaven with no obligations in the meantime.” Her concern is common. Her statements reflect a belief that if we don’t take ownership of certain things that we must do for God, we may become passive and lazy.

What is the responsibility of the believer toward God? The disciples once asked Jesus about the works they were to do for God. “They said therefore to Him, ‘What shall we do that we may work the works of God?’ Jesus answered and said to them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent” (John 6:28-29). When asked what we are supposed to do in order to do the work of God, Jesus gave one work. Believe.

If we are to take the words of Jesus at face value, faith is the sole work of the Christian (and even that is a gift from Him — see Ephesians 2:8). That fact doesn’t mean that nothing else will be done, but that nothing else can be done unless it flows from the abiding relationship of faith in Him as our constant Life-Source (See John 15:5). The activity of our lifestyle comes from the overflow of our intimate union with Him. As we trust Him, we will discover the reality of the truth that “Faithful is He that calleth you who will also do it” (1 Thessalonians 5:24, KJV)

Negative Faith

Some people have a negativity being broadcast inside them practically all the time. Sometimes it is a conscious broadcast. At others it is subconscious. This negativity causes them to look at a scenario and immediately see the negative aspects of it.
“Do you want to get well?” Jesus asks them. They don’t even hear the question. Like the man beside the pool of Bethesda, their response is immediately a negative, “why it won’t work for me” type of response.

They are prophets of doom to themselves. “I’ve always been this way. It’s just the way I am. That could never work because . . . My situation is different.” They have a thousand reasons why things won’t change for them. They will say they wish thing could change, but then prosecute their own case by reminding themselves of all the reasons why things never will.

They are masters of imagining potential scenarios and superimposing a negative outcome onto them. Their tendency is to play out a scene in their mind that hasn’t even happened yet. It is borrowing trouble when none even exists at the moment. It is appropriating negative faith that things will turn out in negative way.

This kind of negativity is a sour note that will deeply affect any of us who hear it if we don’t change stations. Here’s how it happens: As the discordant background “music” plays in our minds, it creates a certain mood within us. That mood influences the way we think about things. When you combine the way a person both thinks and feels, together these create a certain paradigm on life – a negative one.

This negative paradigm determines our expectations when we face any situation in life. That expectation is nothing less than a reflection of our faith. Jesus said, “According to your faith, so be it unto you.” It becomes clear, then, that some of us are going through life expressing great faith – negative faith! Then we wonder why things don’t seem to “go our way.” According to your faith be it unto you.

Why did Israel wander in the wilderness for forty years? It was because of their negative faith. The Bible says, “they could not enter in because of unbelief” (Hebrews 3:19). Too many people have blamed God, other people, or just their own “bad luck” for not reaching their destiny, when the truth is that the fault lies squarely on their own refusal to believe in God’s basic goodness and in His desire to guide them in fulfilling His will. Are you waiting for God to act? Has it occurred to you that God may be waiting for you?

Have you been short-circuiting your life by appropriating negative outcomes in the situations you face in life? Is there an underlying AM (awful mentality) station playing in the background inside your head all the time? Change stations.

Faithless thinking doesn’t really exist because there is no such thing as an absolute absence of belief. Put any of us in any situation and we will begin to draw conclusions about our circumstances based on what we see. We will evaluate our situation and mentally predict how things are going to unfold as times progresses. In other words, we will come to believe that we know what our future will hold.

Those beliefs become our faith system. Once it is established, it becomes very hard to think outside the walls of expectation we have built around ourselves. We box ourselves in by our limited thinking, which developed through a human assessment of the details of our lives at a given moment in time. Functioning now from a negative faith, we begin to look for evidence in our circumstances to validate that our initial analysis of the situation was right. “See, I knew it!” we affirm when visible evidence tends to support our negative perspective.

The trap tightens its grip on us as we affirm again and again that “this is just the way things are” and as we appropriate hopelessness that things can ever change. Our faith, negative faith, grows by leaps and bounds. Every day seems to take us further from hope that things will ever change.

I’ve heard people say that we shouldn’t put God in a box. “Let Him out of the box!” they’ll challenge others. It’s not God who is in the box. It’s us. God is too big and too powerful to let our puny negative faith box Him in. Let’s not flatter ourselves by thinking that we are squelching God. “Come out of your box and believe Me and I’ll do “great and mighty things like you can’t imagine,” says our Father of grace. (See Jeremiah 33:3) Begin to expect things to go your way because God is “for you.” Recognize that God’s grace equals guaranteed success. Approach life with an optimistic expectancy, based on the goodness of God.

God once told Abraham, “I will give you the land as far as you can see.” There is an interesting principle embedded in that statement that raises a question: What can you see? Do you see life never advancing, never expanding? Maybe the only thing that needs to change for you to move boldly into the fulfillment of your potential is a change of focus.

Will you lay hold on the hope of fulfilling the God given dreams of your heart? The Apostle Paul did. He wrote, triumphantly, “Now glory be to God! By his mighty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope (Ephesians 3:20, NLT)! “Without wavering, let us hold tightly to the hope we say we have, for God can be trusted to keep his promise (Hebrews 10:23, NLT).

-- This article is an excerpt from my book, Walking In The Will of God. For more information about the book, click this link: http://gracewalkresources.com/item.asp?cID=0&PID=555 The book is on sale this month.)

You Shall Know They Are Christians

Imagine giving a description of what God is like to somebody who had never heard of Him. How would you describe Him to them in a short summary?

I hope you would mention God's love in your description. Since that is the essence of His nature, to do justice to any description of Him requires that we talk about His love. If the world only understood the truth about the love of Father, so many more would come to Him in faith. Sadly, their understanding is often a distorted caricature of who He really is.

One reason it is so important to understand and accept your Father's love is because we all eventually become like the whatever we imagine God to be. People trapped in legalism see God as a judgmental, cosmic eye-in-the-sky who is watching and waiting for them to mess up in the way they live. They imagine that how they behave is what matters most to Him. Consequently, that's the kind of person they become in the way they relate to other people. They become harsh parents, demanding friends, dictator-type pastors, etc.

What they need is to understand the agape love of their Father. That's where you come into the picture. As a grace-walking evangelist, you will become more and more effective in sharing His love with others as you become more and more persuaded of how much He loves you. You won't have to struggle to witness, but will be a witness because you can do no less than point people to Him through your walk and your words.

Jesus Christ is head over heels in love with you. Have you become fully persuaded of that truth? He plans to spend eternity proving His love to you in ways beyond your wildest dreams. His love is pure, yet passionate. It is an objective fact with profound subjective implications for your life. He longs for you to know how much He loves you, to feel how much He loves you and to see how much He loves you.

As the revelation of God's extravagant love becomes more and more real to us, love becomes our trademark, our identifying characteristic. It's what we're known for, just like love is what God is known for too. More will be said as you move through this week's studies about sharing God's love. For now, make a mental note that as you experience deeper intimacy with Him, you will become more and more like your Father. The outcome of that is that you will find yourself becoming more loving to everybody.

If others were to describe the kind of person you are right now, what would they say? Would they use the word "loving" in their description? What one word would each of these people use to describe you?

Your mate? Your children?

Your best friend? Your co-workers?

People at church? Your neighbors?

Don't condemn yourself if you can't imagine some of these people using the word "loving" to describe you. Transformation is gradual, but it will come to you as you continue to grow in intimacy with God.

As you experience your Father's love, you will begin to express it more and more to other people. Some people you encounter won't immediately accept it though. Be prepared that some will resist because it doesn't make sense to them.

Some will caution you against the dangers of shallow emotionalism. That viewpoint isn't totally wrong. There are those who reduce their understanding of the relationship they have to Christ to the place of emotionalism. Nobody would deny that, but there is an equal or maybe even greater danger that people will spend the rest of their lives relating to God only through their minds. Religious intellectualism is just as far out of bounds as emotionalism.

The idea of unconditional love from God is hard for some people. They will ask questions like:

What if I turned my back on God and renounced Him?
What if I intentionally committed a horrible sin?
What if I am spiritually lukewarm?
What if I lose faith?
What if...?

There are a thousand "what-ifs" people can ask as they struggle with the idea of unconditional love. The reason they have such a hard time believing that nothing can stop God from loving them is because it isn't normal. In fact, it's not even human. It is divine. Unconditional love is rarely seen in this world. Sadly, that's true even among Christians. If you doubt it, just watch what happens when a Christian falls into sin.

That's why it is so important for you to determine to cling to the truth of God's love. Don't back down on your belief about it for anything. It is the only thing in existence that cannot fail you. "Love never fails," said Paul in that famous love chapter in 1 Corinthians 13 and that is the truth.

Stand strong in the truth about God's unconditional love. In time, you will become known for it. It will become your trademark, not a bad way to be known!

-- This article is an excerpt from my book, Journey Into Intimacy. Find out more about the book by clicking this link: http://gracewalkresources.com/item.asp?cID=0&PID=525

When Others Try To Put Expectations On You

One of the greatest changes grace brings to followers of Jesus when we are set free from legalism is the release from being controlled by the religious expectations others try to put on us. The essence of religion is that it binds you up and controls you. (The origin of the English word "religion" is religare (Latin) and means "to bind." See http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080404080629AAginSu)

Legalism is religion in its glaring ugliness. My definition of legalism is "the viewpoint that we can make spiritual progress or earn God's blessings based on what we do." In contrast, grace "is the system of living in which God blesses us because of what Jesus Christ has done on our behalf and for no other reason."

Legalists (rules-based religionists) always seek to impose their behavioral expectations on others and judge people when they don't live up to those expectations. This has been the history of religion from the beginning. Their fundamental belief is, "Our way is the right way and if you don't believe exactly like we believe and do what we do, you're wrong!"

Jesus encountered the religious legalists in His day and described them this way: But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market places, who call out to the other children, and say, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn’ (Matthew 11:16-17)

In other words, they became angry because Jesus wouldn't do what they expected. They played their discordant music and He refused to dance to it. They sang their sour dirge and He wouldn't act like they wanted Him to act. He refused to submit to their expectations.

As you walk in grace, don't be surprised when you are criticized by rules-focused religionists. Make no mistake about it - they simultaneously hate your freedom while they envy it. Their plausibility structure for their lives leaves no room for the kind of freedom you know. Deep down, in their spirit, they want it but they have been so indoctrinated with faulty teaching that they sincerely think they would be compromising at the least and denying the faith at the worst if they were to abandon their prison of behavioral bondage and begin to run barefoot and free in the fields of grace.

Because they don't understand the transforming power of knowing our true identity, they're scared that if they surrendered to grace they might go off the deep end into sinful actions. They've never been free to live a godly lifestyle but have spent their lives trying to squelch sin so they think that to stop trying to squelch sin would empower it. They can't focus on Jesus because they spend all their energy trying to fight sin, not knowing that it has already been defeated once and for all at the cross.

They don't know that understanding the efficacy of the Father's grace in their lives would actually be a fire extinguisher to the blaze of the suppressed lusts of every kind that they constantly battle. The just don't get it, that grace ignites holy passion within us. They can quote the Bible verse, "For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace, (Romans 6:14)" but don't have the slightest clue what it actually means.

If you come from a religious background, you may find yourself vulnerable to their criticisms and judgmental attitudes. You may find yourself wondering at times if you have accidentally veered off the path of orthodoxy. If you've ever lived in the Landfill of Legalism, they know how to push the buttons in you that may cause you to have doubts about the way you understand grace.

Don't listen to those doubts. Paul's words to the Galatians are meant for you too: It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore, keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery (Galatians 5:1). The legalists at Galatia were trying to get the believers there to turn back and Paul cried out, "Don't do it! Stand strong!" His instruction to them will serve us well today too.

Walking in the freedom embedded in grace provokes the ire of the religionist, but for your own peace of mind, for the sake of others who need to know the truth of the gospel of grace and for the honor of the finished work of Jesus, don't turn back. Stay the course. Stand firm. Endure the criticism. Accept the sanctions from others. And keep your eyes on Jesus because He has set you free and "He whom the Son sets free is free indeed!"

It's Not True That Grace Is An Important Doctrine

"Why do you stress the grace of God, but don't talk much about His other characteristics?" I'm often asked. People often like to remind me that there's much more to theology than grace. "We need grace but there are other important things too," somebody recently said.

I think this kind of criticism misses the point altogether. Grace isn't an important doctrine that takes its place in line with other doctrines. Grace is the essence of the gospel. In fact, the Apostle Paul called it "the gospel of the grace of God" in Acts 20:24. The essence of our Triune God's DNA is grace. He has been and will always be a God of grace. To talk about grace is to talk about Him.

Some think they are making an admirable statement to say that grace is an important doctrine, but while asserting such a thing sounds complimentary it actually undermines the strength of grace. Grace is not an important doctrine. It is not to be put on a list of doctrinal teachings. It is from our Father's grace that every other spiritual reality we can know flows. Every doctrine and all our understanding of theology must recognize God's grace as the fountainhead of truth.

To suggest that grace is an important doctrine is like saying that breathing is an important part of my life. That would be an understatement of ridiculous proportions. Breathing is not an important part of my life. When Paul said, “For me to live is Christ,” he might as well have said, “For me to live is grace.” They are the same in essence. John said that Jesus came “full of grace.” (See John 1:14) It’s who He is, not something He does.

The word gospel means “hilariously good news.” What is this good news that Paul said he had been entrusted to share with those around him? It was the good news of the grace of God. So, we see then that grace is not an important doctrine. It is what gives the gospel it’s meaning.

Sometimes pastors have said to me, “This year we are focusing on grace in our church.” “What are you focusing on during other years?” I find myself thinking. Grace isn’t important. It’s everything.

Did The Father Forsake Jesus On the Cross? No!

For many years I taught the seven sayings of the cross and when I came to the words of Jesus, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" I used the text as evidence that the Father had turned His back on His own Son when Jesus was on the cross. "The Bible is clear that God cannot look upon sin!" I would boldly proclaim. It seemed reasonable to me that God turned away from Jesus. After all, isn't that what Jesus said?

The answer is, "No, that is not what He said. That is what He asked. There's a big difference between making an assertion and asking a question."

"Do you mean Jesus was wrong?" you might ask. My answer is that it was Jesus, the Man who became sin for us. When he absorbed the darkness and weight of the sin of the world into Himself, He had the sense of abandonment by God the Father that sin always brings. Blinded by sin and horrified by its effect on and in Him, the man Jesus cried out of His humanity, "Why have you forsaken me?" In that moment, He identified Himself with every person who has ever felt abandoned by God. He became one who felt isolated, lonely, abandoned, forsaken and hopeless on behalf of you, me, and everybody who would ever feel that way.

The question Jesus spoke was a direct quote from the prophetic Psalm 22, where in the very first verse the psalmist asks, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" It is noteworthy that this is the only time Jesus ever called His Father "God" and not "Father." In that moment,the man Jesus felt forsaken. Having become sin for us, He could not feel or sense or see His Father's embrace at that moment.

The gospels don't record an answer to His question, but Psalm 22 does. In response to the first verse where the psalmist cries out the prophetic words, "Why have you forsaken me?" there is an answer in verse 24. Here's the answer to the question of Jesus, the question of the psalmist and the question of every person who has ever felt abandoned by the Father: For he (God the Father) has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help.

Sin may deafen our ears to the answer, but the reality is that the Father has never and will never despise, disdain or turn His face away from us, forsaking us. He has heard our cry for help!

God the Father forsaking His own Son? Impossible! God the Father was "in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself!" (2 Corinthians 5:19) Jesus didn't feel it at the time. It seemed like the Father had forsaken Him, but He hadn't! Nor will He ever forsake you.

But what about the "God cannot look upon sin" part? Doesn't the Bible say that? Well, it does but we need to put that comment in context. It was Habakkuk the prophet who said that as he watched evil people seemingly getting away with their sins. Here's the whole quote in context:

Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves? Habakkuk 1:13

To paraphrase him, Habakkuk said, "Your eyes are too pure to look on evil and you can't tolerate wrong so why are you?" In other words, it made no sense to Habakkuk that God was looking on sin when Habakkuk believed that wasn't possible. He was smearing the face of God with the guilt and shame of humanity the same way Adam had done when he hid himself in the Garden of Eden because He thought God wouldn't want to look at him after he sinned. Adam was wrong. God came for His walk that day just as He had every day. And Habakkuk was wrong too.

The fact is that God can look upon sin. Some people act as if the relationship of God the Father to sin is like Superman's aversion to kryptonite. They act as if God is afraid of sin, but nothing could be further from the truth. In Christ Jesus, sin has been destroyed - finished- end of story. (See Daniel 9:24) Through the finished work of the cross, sin has been defeated! God hates sin because of what it does to us, not because it does anything to Him.

So, on the cross Jesus took the sin of the world upon Himself. As a man who became sin for us (so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him), He felt forsaken, but He was not. The Father did hear His cry and, as the empty tomb three days later proves, did not forsake Him. The question of Jesus the man was: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" The answer from God the Father was: "I haven't! I've not despised, disdained nor forsaken you. I'm here with you, in this moment, carrying you through this death to the glorious resurrection on the other side."

That was true for Jesus when he felt forsaken and it's true for you when you feel that way too.