Being Religious

When I was younger, I thought of myself as being a religious person. I believed in God and Jesus was a good person. I prayed every night before I went to bed. What I did not understand until later in life was that being religious meant nothing. I have been to churches and seen the same problems. They will sing the old songs and preach about the sins of the world. They tell folks all about the good things they are doing in the community. The problem is that if you show up to service in jeans they look down on you. If you are a woman and do not wear a dress or skirt, you are looked at funny. If you do anything that is not considered acceptable to them, you are treated as an outcast. After all, they are very religious people and they know that they are doing things right. I had to learn that being religious was not as important as having Christ in my life. How could I be saved and call myself a religious person yet still live my life as I always had? I couldn’t. How can a church call themselves religious and look down on people just because of what they are wearing? They can’t. I got news for you; God does not care what you wear to church. He does not care that you know all the songs in the hymnals; all He cares about is what’s in your heart. If He is not in your heart you can be as religious as you want to be and still go to hell when you die. We do not need religion. We need God! Go to church, worship God, do all the things that you normally do. All I am asking you to do is not get caught up in the idea that just because you do all of that, that you are ok. The fact is unless the Spirit is alive and well in you and evident in your daily life, you are not ok. Jesus said in John 14:6 that no one comes to the Father except through Me. You can have all the religion in the world, be the best person in the world but without Jesus you are lost. Don’t be religious, be saved!