Jan 22: Religious Relationships
“26 If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not bridle his tongue, he deceives his heart and his religion is worthless. 27 Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” James 1:26-27
Everything was created by God and for God, including religion. Religion that is not God-given is man made or corrupted. If you’ve been hurt, then it wasn’t God, because there is nothing that God has created that has been purposed to harm you.
God has created everything to be enjoyed as we grow in relationship, through the relationship we practice.
James says - “Do not allow the world to corrupt you” but when something has been corrupted, although created by God, it has the potential to hurt us and others.
God gave Adam and Eve instructions and guidelines to live in relationship with Him. God spoke and said “Be fruitful and multiply.” What is this, it’s religion that pleases God. It comes from God and when followed we are able to grow in relationship with God.
We have a gospel that says “God bless me!”, “God heal me!”, “God do this for me!” however the gospel is “God what pleases you?”, “God I want to do your will”.
Why can’t we enjoy God’s presence? Maybe God can’t rest over your life and still has to work in you. Why are there people that have peace in the midst of the storm? It’s people that have created space for God’s presence, and in that presence joy and peace. Peace that surpasses all understanding.
Religion is the guideline as to how we should draw close to God. This is why religion is so important. The disciples walked with Jesus for so long, yet they still asked: “How do we pray”. They still asked, “Is there someone else(Messiah) coming?
It will not only give us information of God but actually know who God is. It’s like knowing of a person but not knowing personal details (taste) of a person. So what do we do to know God? How do we approach God’s presence? “Holy Ghost! I don’t know how to, help me Holy Ghost”. Then the Holy Ghost will help come over us and grant us the grace to be in God’s presence. And since God is holy, He is attracted to holiness. We are not holy, no act of ours is holy enough, only when we accept the Son, who is holy - then God is attracted to us through Jesus.
You know what happened last time a man and woman full of passion walked out of God’s presence? While passion is not submitted to the guidelines of the Lord and in the presence of the Lord, passion will cause chaos in our lives. Passion without instruction is destructive.
Paul wrote to Timothy, “be careful of your passions - flee from them”. The problem is then where do we flee? If we don’t run to God’s presence, it doesn’t have a place to be used correctly. God has created and designed your passions, but the problem is when we run outside of the presence of God with our passions. Relationships are formed but it takes steps and decisions. We need religious relationships, because religion is the guideline of our seriousness of our relationship with God.
These guidelines will make us different than everybody else, because we are following Him. It is important that we become different. Not different to stand out, but to be the ‘salt and light of the earth’. This will make us become like Jesus. Religion and relationship that does not lead us to become like Jesus, is not God-given. We see this in the life Peter, as Christ was being crucified. He wasn’t being criticized but being reminded that He belonged to Jesus, because “He doesn’t talk us, He doesn’t walk like us, what are you doing here?”.
There is a religion (set of guidelines/practices) that pleases God, it’s taking care of His image. Don’t allow the surrounding corruption in culture to lose sight of your relationship with God that is maintained by God-given religion.