Day 20 - Basic Religion

Thoughts on Michael Wells’ teachings in My Weakness for His Strength - # 79

         

Michael’s book is available through:

Abiding Life Ministries International

Littleton, Colorado

(303) 972-0859       www.abidinglife.com

 Years ago I heard Michael say, “We rise and fall by our definitions.”  Those words, along with “Say what you mean, and mean what you say” (from another minister), began to rumble around in my brain until I began to decide to try and  use words that had no double meanings…illus: “hard,” as compared to “difficult,” when used in saying something like, “This is a hard task.”  Is it hard like in concrete, or hard like in difficult?  Why not use “difficult” to start with?  Michael’s writing today is one of those illustrations of terms misleading or confusing us depending on how they are used.

Day 20

Basic Religion

For everyone born of God has overcome the world. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes Jesus is the Son of God. --I John 5:4, 5

Religion at its most basic point is man’s attempt to be like God through mind, will, or emotion. This first appeared in the Garden, where religion took the place of relationship. Man does not like his own condition and aspires to ascend and be as a god; God does not like man's condition, either, and so He intentionally descended to become a victorious man who lived as God would on earth, and though worry, doubt, fear, anxiety, sin, the enemy, and depression would come calling as temptations, He rejected and overcame them all. He now gives us this life of a victorious God/Man that we, too, might live a life that is free. Jesus is the ultimate definition and fulfillment of religion, for He was the man who was, in fact, God, able to take away all superstition, all that is inconsequential, and all irrelevant arguments, leaving us with true, full, and abundant life. The kingdom of God within us brings its own set of invisible laws that, when observed, bring happiness. The enemy would have us believe that we are unhappy until we give in to sin, and yet sin brings misery. True happiness comes when submitting to the laws within and is possible only through receiving His life. The kingdom of God does, in fact, equal life. 

Yellow – VIP, Very Important Point      Green – IT, Incredible Truth        

Red – GP, Greatest Promises

Turquoise – UR, Unfathomable Riches           Pink – PV, Priceless Victory

I have no idea when man started using the term “religion” in relation to Christianity.  But, by the very definition of the word, it involves something man does, or must do.  I have never heard anyone try to define or describe “religion” by saying anything that resembles a “relationship.”  Why?  Perhaps simply because a “relationship” involves the interaction of two people or things, or multitudes of both.  Have you ever had anyone ask you, “What relationship are you?”  No, it is always, “What religion are you?”  And even then, there are further questions to determine what “something man does, or must do” you are trying to live by…example: the Baptist set of “somethings” or the Methodist set, or the Catholic set, etc.

So, when talking about “Christianity” are we talking about “something man does, or must do” OR “the interaction of two people”?  Obviously, God’s Word tells us it is the latter.  So, man goes about life missing God because of using a wrong word for the relationship God intended for Himself and man from the beginning.  That in itself is terrible, because the multitudes miss God for eternity.  But, even those who have found God have difficulty in life because they turn from “relationship” to “religion” to live by.  How sad.

Michael gives us God’s answer to life for a Christian: With Jesus, God "gives us this life of a victorious God/Man that we, too, might live a life that is free."  Beautiful!  It is Him living His life through me that I live a life that is free.  Well, amen.

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Lee McDowell Christian Ministries

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