Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Relationship Versus Religion


I struggle sometimes.  Caught between religion and relationship.

At church over the weekend, my Pastor shared an amazing message about this very thing.

His points were worth sharing:

*  Religion seeks to replace the work of the Holy Spirit with our performance

*  Religion makes you miserable and mechanical
*  Religion will get you racking up points and keeping score


Religion is:

*  Trying to earn what is already ours
*  Trying to manufacture what only God can produce
*  Striving FOR acceptance instead of living FROM acceptance

Religion =

1)  You become performance focused or performance based
2)  You become competitive with someone else and do a lot of comparison with others in general
3)  You become a fault finder and critical
4)  You become defensive
5)  You live with an unresolved sense of guilt because you base your relationship with God on what you DO instead of   what Jesus did FOR you.

Trade in every 'religious' act for His love.
Trade in criticism for prayer.



1 comment:

  1. Weepy worship leaders? Why? Because they are real; male and female alike. And, after all, aren't they leading? Where are they leading? How can we draw closer to God (whom we are supposed to be worshiping) if we have on our church face? How many times have our worship leaders had to fight 'tooth and nail' to bring us into the presence of God just to have the time be over? Or better yet, how many times have we had to break down walls so God can start the healing process, but we have to allow it? From the Garden forward our nature has been to hide our true feelings from Him and others and we will only be as transparent and real as we see it demonstrated before us. And what better venue than praise and worship??? Many is the time the Holy Spirit has touched or even broken a leader's heart (that didn't have a clue beforehand) with His love and it was never intended to stop there and truth be known, it rarely has. When His Spirit starts flowing, we don't need to grieve Him by stifling our emotions that naturally follow. So, lead on, sister, unashamed and uninhibited - lead on!
    Geneva

    ReplyDelete