Why Religion Is Holding Your Relationship With God Hostage (pt 1.)
How To Avoid Religion to Have A Godly Relationship
The crazy thing about religion is that it has nothing to do with your relationship with God.
Unfortunately, many Christians have confused religion with relationship. We think that our righteous works put us in God’s good standing or that our relationship with Him is based on how well we follow some moral compass.
However, this logic is ill-advised because relationship has nothing to do with religion. But because we have been Sunday schooled with non-biblical church commandments we supplement our relationship with religion.
So what is a relationship with God supposed to look like?
What Is Relationship With God?
Like any other relationship, a relationship with God is a personal connection between you and him.
It doesn’t involve a third party because it has nothing to do with anyone else. It’s 1-on-1.
Your relationship with God has everything to do with your personal faith in Him and nothing to do with anyone else’s ideology about your sanctification.
When your understanding of God is based on the teachings of someone else’s faith that’s religion. But when your understanding of God is based on your own faith that’s a relationship.
If I had to use biblical evidence of what a relationship with God is, Romans 14 would be the perfect chapter.
“Some people’s faith allows them to eat anything, but the person who is weak in the faith eats only vegetables. The person who will eat anything is not to despise the one who doesn’t; while the one who eats only vegetables is not to pass judgement on the one who will eat anything; for God has accepted that person” — Romans 14:2–3 (GNT)
Though this verse is directly dealing with diet, there’s a deeper message here; God has accepted everyone who has accepted him regardless of how they practice their faith.
You might’ve thought that in order to be in relationship with God we must adhere to all religious practices when in fact abiding by all these laws makes your relationship weak.
Why?
Because your relationship with God is grounded in the strength of your faith, not in your obedience to rules and regulations.
If the foods you eat determine the condition of your faith then your faith is in a troubled state. Why is it that state of your eternal dwelling determined by what you digest?
Did not Christ give salvation to those who believed or did he give salvation to those who have a biblical diet?
When your understanding of God is based on the teachings of someone else’s faith that’s religion. But when your understanding of God is based on your own faith that’s a relationship.
Religion to relationship is like superficial pains to friendship.
If you no longer can be friends with a person because they didn’t give you money that one time how much of a friend were they to you anyway?
Because the issue isn’t that they didn’t give you money at that particular time, the issue was the strength of the friendship. And while you would like put the blame on the other person for a friendship gone wrong, the truth is you are the one responsible because you didn’t take into account the depth of the relationship.
The same thing applies to our relationship with God.
Many people have no longer keep in touch with Him because he didn’t give them what they asked for so now they blame God for situations and circumstances that have happened to them when the truth is they didn’t take into account the depth of their relationship.
And when you supplement superficial religious practices for relationship it makes your relationship weak because it was built on surface-level actions, not faith based on a deep understanding of his word.
Religion to relationship is like superficial pains to friendship.
Ultimately, your personal relationship should not cause others to sin.
“Instead, you should decide never to do anything that would make others stumble or fall into sin. My union with the Lord Jesus makes me certain that no food is of itself ritually unclean; but if you believe that some food is unclean, then it becomes unclean for you…All foods may be eaten, but it is wrong to eat anything that will cause someone else to fall into sin” — Romans 14:13–14,20 (GNT)
When you teach others to do something or not to do something based on your relationship with God what you are doing is passing on potential sins.
How?
If it is wrong for you to watch football on Sunday you should not teach that to someone else because that law is based on your faith and not the faith they have gained from reading and understanding the word of God.
In essence, what you would have done is help them build religion and not relationship because they would be following what they deem to be right according to you, not the Bible.
Relationship with God depends on an individual’s faith in God that comes from comprehension of the Bible.
And as a Christian, you must be careful to pass on biblical teachings that creates faith in God thus building relationship.
Because when you teach faith that is not based on scripture you are creating stumbling blocks for someone else because when they go against your teachings they go against their perceived faith that was built on your instruction.
“And anything that is not based on faith is sin” — Romans 14:23 (GNT)
Takeaway
Your personal relationship with God should not be confused with religious practices.
Just because you are in good standing with the church does not mean you are in good relationship with God.
Like many Christians, you may have been churched into believing that by adhering to religious practices you have relationship when in actuality you are being obedient to someone else’s faith according to their understanding of the scriptures.
Yet relationship has everything to do with your individual faith in God that was formed through your understanding of His word.
Thus, in order to have a strong relationship, you must read and comprehend the word of God for yourself. You must gain a personal understanding of the scripture and not one that was passed down to you.
Thanks for reading. Click here for pt 2.
