Religion Ain't Bad, It's Just Misunderstood.

In keeping with my previous trend, I am going to talk about the misconception that seems to surround the word religion. I would be lying to you if I said that sometimes I cringe at the word. That kind of upsets me. Because religion is not the problem. It really never has been. If we look at the definition of religion, we will see that simply put it just means, the service and worship of God.

There, that's not so bad.

So why does society (and Christians specifically it would seem) flee from calling ourselves "religious"?

Because it has such a negative connotation.

A lot of "crazy" people have also been "religious", and Biblically speaking, the Pharisees were considered the "most religious", and look how that turned out for them.

I do not believe that religion gets you to heaven.

Serving God doesn't get you to Heaven. Worshiping God doesn't get you there either. Rather, they are products of your relationship with God.

Biblically speaking, the term religion only appears a scanty five times (in the English Standard Version), twice in Acts (25:19, 26:5), twice in James (1:26-27) and once in Colossians (2:23).

Really the only one of the five that speaks to what religion is, is found in James, which states:

"Religion that God the Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world" (ESV)

So by James' definition, religion is not so much about what you believe, but how you believe it.

In other words, James' definition of religion, undoubtedly supplied by the Holy Spirit, leans more towards religion being a term to describe the action of the relationship between Christ and His followers. So while no, Christianity is not soley a religion, there seems to be a balance between our relationship with Christ and how we act on it religiously.

So instead of getting bent out of shape because someone calls you "religious", take it as a compliment. And ratify the term by claiming "religion" and  honoring God through it.

If you're reading this, I'm going to urge you to stop and instead go read what the Bible has to say on the subject of love. As a culture we have complete desensitized ourselves to its meaning. We do not understand what the word even means. Let me pause here by saying that I'm under no false pretenses that I am an expert in the subject, nor do I find myself in the right here. I'm as guilty as anyone of this love misconception epidemic.
We have robbed ourselves as Christians by losing the meaning of the word love.

Look through Scripture and find an instance when the story goes something like this,
And Jesus said, "God, I love manna. It's so delicious."
And Jesus said, "God, I love hanging out with you guys. You're so cool."
And Jesus said, "OMG I love this song!"

(Now if you notice, I also brought up another one of my pet peeves, which is the improper use of God's name, but that's for another day)

I don't think that we will find any of those phrases in Scripture. Why? Because that's not what the word love means. But I myself have said all three of those things. This week. Well, I said bread, not manna. You get my point.

I've also said, "Lord, I love you."

Ouch. So I love bread. I love hanging out with my friends. I love a song. I love Jesus.

Why in the world would I use a word to describe how I feel about my Savior to also describe bread.

More often than not, what we mean by love is really like or enjoy.

But the word love has become a universal term to show appreciation or enjoyment for something. The reason we cannot define the word love is because it's used for everything.
If we knew what the word truly meant, I think we would be more weary to use it improperly.

"But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us"

What Paul just said is that love is an agent that drives us to set aside ourselves completely, even to the point of brutal, torturous death for the object of which we love.

And we say we love pizza.

But that's God's love,

you might want to argue, as I did in trying to justify myself. That is true, this is Godly love. But God Himself commands us as Christians to "Be Holy as I am Holy", and to follow the example of Christ. So this is the love that Christ commands us to have.

Do we understand that when we say "Gosh, I love this song", truly we implying that we set aside ourselves completely, even to the point of brutal, torturous death for this song"

In my opinion, the Love Misconception accounts for almost everything that is wrong with the world. People "fall in love", but get divorced after 30 years of marriage. People "make love", but are left with a brokenness. 

This isn't the love the Bible speaks of. And although my mind doesn't even begin to comprehend God's, I would assume that it's a slap in the face to one minute profess our 'love' for pizza, or a song, or even another person, and the next proclaim that same 'love' for YHWH.

If you cannot tell, I am pretty convicted and torn up over this. And because I never want to be a Phariseetian (yes, I made this up), I am going to put action to my words. I am, starting now, going to take a few extra breaths and say that I "really really like" pizza.
If I truly love the Lord, then everything else should look like hate.

"If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple."
(Luke 14)

Obviously Jesus isn't encouraging hatred, but what He is saying is that your love for God should be so immense that everything by comparison looks like hate.

So join me, if the Holy Spirit has so convicted you, to become sensitized to the word love and it's meaning, and see how radically your view of love changes.

The Parable of the Lost Coin goes something like this, [Jesus said], "Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it? And when she has found it, she call together her friends and neighbors, saying, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.' Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents."
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I stumbled upon this verse today in my New Testament class (imagine that!), and I had an epiphany. To tell you the truth, apart from my teacher's relatively bad puns, I cannot remember much of what was said, and class just ended. I cannot remember because God was speaking to me today, through Luke.
Read through those words one more time.
It hit me like never before that God is never a passive God. Ever.
Although admittedly it's a little strange that I interpret God as the woman in this parable, nevertheless the meaning still stands.
Like the woman and her coin, God finds intrinsic value in us as His children. What fool idly stands by when he looses money? If you are anything like me, you usually seek after that pesky penny that jumps out of your wallet or purse and rolls under something, usually a counter or refrigerator or something else irritating. Or Heaven forbid a dollar falls out of my back pocket.

Why do we do that? Why do we not just leave the money on the ground?
Because it's valuable.
So why does God not leave us when we are lost?
Because. We are valuable.
This parable says that the woman diligently sought for the coin she had lost, going as far as to light a lamp [implying darkness], and sweeping her whole home until  she finds it.
Likewise, God diligently seeks after His lost children, lighting a lamp in our darkness and He sweeps across the world to find us. God does not wait for us. We do not operate on His time table. Instead, He does everything He possibly can to seek us.
And if that is not reason enough to praise Him, read on further.
The woman gets her friends and basically throws a party. For one coin. ONE. COIN. I'm thinking, come on lady. You have nine other coins. Talk about frugal. Why do you have to have the tenth?
Because it's valuable.
And just as the woman in this parable most likely planned to use that coin to accomplish a goal, so our Father plans to use us similarly.
God is not idle.
He does not stand around, moping that He has lost His coin. No, He diligently seeks it, and rejoices with all of Heaven when one of His children returns.

What a beautiful God we serve.