My Quote of the Week

My quote of the week would be: Religion requires behavior - Relationship requires faith. I say that because it is not a prerequisite of Christian growth to do certain religious behaviors in order to please God. But the Bible says it is impossible to please God without faith. Everyone comes to Christ the same - broken and separated from God. No one is, or has ever been, or ever will be an exception. It takes faith to have a relationship with God, not how well we think we are being "good" at our religion.

We can have religion by dutifully following religious behaviors but that does not equate relationship with God. It does not forgive our sin, remove guilt, or reveal God's love for us. It does, however, give us some level of comfort thinking we can have something to do with earning our salvation or that we deserve it or are even owed something from God. Dangerous territory when we start to think we are responsible for our salvation.

God so loved that He gave; John 3:16. Next verse, Jesus didn't come to condemn. How do we get so far off track and try to "fix" ourselves or each other by requiring, controlling, or even manipulating behavior? I think it has it's roots in wanting something tangible to "do" or "prove" or "see". One of my favorite movie scenes is in the movie "Contact" with Jodi Foster. She is a scientist who wants to go into space and look for intelligent life. She was given this dream as a child from her single father after her mother's death. Her minister friend tells her to not take the risk and accept things on faith. She says she cannot accept things on faith because to be real, it has to be proven. He asks her to prove that she loved her now deceased father. She is challenged to consider faith because she cannot prove that very real truth to anyone but herself.

I cannot believe that God so loved this broken, mixed up world as it is, so that He would give us His Only Son so that we could try harder to do better at following religious rules in order to please Him! That is absurd! But it is also a cannonball dive into the world of faith. Faith is evidence of things we cannot see. Faith is relationship with God. Faith is salvation through Christ. Faith is knowing God's will for our life. Faith is knowing Jesus in daily living. Faith is even righteousness according to the scriptures. That's why without it, we cannot please God no matter how well we do church, or agree with theology, or are faithful in giving and attending, or which denomination we belong to.

I want my life to be more like depending on faith and less like depending on behavior!

Pastor Mike