I’d Be Better Off Without the Technology of Religion
Week after week, year after year, routine religion repeats and circles through the same rigid, technology-like cycles. Jesus, however, wants to lead His people past their prepackaged programs and into the refreshing newness of glory after glory.
Routine religion seldom produces radiant faces. It prefers to mask them with a veil. When religion repeatedly follows a regular pattern, it tends to quench the freedom to be led by the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit’s control is curtailed and crowded out human control takes charge. Where faith is stagnant Christ’s inner rivers of living water are no longer flowing.
To let the living Jesus change your life you have to begin to let go of some of your cozy and comfortable criteria. The secret to spiritual lukewarmness is to stay rigidly stuck in systematic religion. Routine religion can easily become spiritual paralysis. Jesus told the Pharisees: “You nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down.”
Biblical Christianity is about living your daily life on God’s schedule, not your own. Look beyond religious routine. Throughout each day behold the unseen presence of Jesus.
A relationship with the risen Jesus is far from the same ole same ole. It’s rigorous yet refreshingly renewing. I relish my relationship with Him.
When there’s a crack in your routine, God’s light can come in. When God slips us out of our religious patterns, too many people jump right back in. Christians have been trained to rely on church routine rather than on a relationship with Christ.
When the risen Jesus is humbly experienced without the veil and trappings of religion, He awakens the awareness of His glorious presence. When people won’t interact with the risen Jesus beyond the veil of religion, they tend to overlook His reality. The stone was rolled away! Look unto the living Jesus.
Jesus is best encountered beyond the complacent comfort of ritual. You have the ability to break out of your religious patterns and to relate to Christ in a fresh beautiful way today. Religious routine repeats over and over but spiritual progress presses “toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” (See Philippians 3:14.)
All it takes for a church to experience revival is to break out of the veil of routine and to step into the spontaneity of God’s Spirit. The greater the spiritual awakening, the less people and churches are reliant on religious procedures.
Some people think
Being led by
The Spirit of
The Lord Jesus
Is frightening,
But I find it
Wonderfully
Empowering,
CHRIST IN YOU the
Hope of glory.
If you pray
And listen
To the thoughts
God deposits
In your mind,
He’ll disrupt
You today
And show you
A better way.
There’s nothing routine
About the unseen
Spirit of God.
Christianity
That becomes routine
Ignores the unseen
Reality of
The risen Jesus.
If your faith
Doesn’t move
You deeply
From your gut
You may be stuck
In a religious rut.
Let yourself frequently burst into praise and thanksgiving. (Today is Thanksgiving Day in the USA so go for it today!)
