Religion vs. Relationship

I grew up in a loving christian home. As I entered those late teen years, I began tasting the world a bit and quickly found out just how bitter it really tasted. Many of the temporary pleasures I sought to fill me came with some pretty painful consequences. Little by little as I neglected my conscience, I found myself further and further from the kind of person I wanted to be. It felt like my life was being drained out of me. I desperately tried to satisfy the hunger in me,  but with all the wrong things. I felt like I was digging myself deeper and deeper into a hole and I didn't know how to get out. It began to dawn on me that I could not do this thing called life on my own, so I decided to turn to God by opening up my "Kings James" bible. I quickly got frustrated because I didn't understand the language. Finally, one night, I was sitting in a dark room crying and I cried out to God and said, "Where are you? I can't see you or hear you? How am I supposed to follow you?" The next day I was at work and a stranger invited me to a bible study. At the same time, my great grandmother began sending me little scriptures she cut out of the Billy Graham section of the newspaper. God heard, and he sent. 

I began to get to know Jesus through the scriptures and through walking along side others who looked to father to guide them. I found my own personal faith in a loving father who offered to save me from destroying myself and those I loved with my sin. He showed me a better way to live. He invited me to walk with him through this life and on into the next. That is salvation, a relationship we are invited into with our loving father/creator who died to save us from our sin and wants to help us navigate our way through this dark world and carry us into the next. 

Over time however, religion began to replace my relationship with Jesus. I began to notice a gnawing ache that wouldn't go away. I felt like I was missing my best friend. But how could I, I was going to church at least 2 times a week, tithing, praying, reading my bible, serving people, confessing my sin, sharing my faith... all the things I was supposed to do to get to heaven. Somewhere along the line, I stopped following Jesus and began following a list of rules and rituals in order to appease a scary God. I had been set free from sin, but felt enslaved more than ever by obligation. When did this happen? When did my loving rescuer become a scary task master? Jesus offered me salvation by inviting me to walk with him through this life and on into the next, but religion told me that salvation was a "get out of hell free card, if I would just jump through all the right hoops". It told me that God was too holy to be with me in my disgusting sin and couldn't bear to be near it. It said, I had better repent if I wanted to be with him. 

Jesus told me that he did bear my sin, on the cross. He covered my shame, so I never have to feel shame again. He fixed it so that nothing could keep me from coming to him, not sin nor shame. I am free to bring it all to him as I wrestle with it. He can show me the way out and heal and restore me. He loves and accepts me without condition and walks with me through all the dark places in this broken world and invites me to surrender to his loving guidance so he can walk me out of the pain and destruction that sin causes and show me true life.  Religion disfigured God and made him scary. It made me want to run and hide from my best friend. It told me I could save myself by doing all the right things. I went from the slavery of sin, to the freedom of walking with my loving father, and then back into slavery again, but this time the yoke around my neck was religion. 

Praise God that he heard me cry out to him once again. He never left my side, but continued to gently whisper for me to come back to him so he could set me free. Oh how I love the freedom of simply walking with my dad. I'm on a journey with my eyes fixed on Him, walking toward Him. I haven't arrived. I don't claim to have all truth, it's only found in Him. As I seek to know Him, He continues to reveal just how beautiful He really is. The good news is so much better than I realized. My fallen nature tells me His grace is too good to be true. But with God, what seems too good to be true actually is true!