Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
Today I am in route to Portugal after a great week in the UK with some very good friends. I am ready for the blessings of God in my continued journey. Life is a destiny, not a destination, and we must embrace the presence of God in every aspect of our lives. Relationship with God will impassion our relationships with one another. It is for love that we live.
The religions of the world are man’s attempt of doing what is good in their own hearts. Religion alone involves things that we do to express some cultural belief that we believe qualifies us to belong to something that is greater than ourselves. It is likely something that we feel makes us greater because we belong to it. When we are part of this group we can belong because we are a member. This kind of thinking creates an elitest mentality that separates us from others that is really based upon a strength spawned by our own insecurities and deceptions to the truth of life.
James 1:26 If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is useless. 27 Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.
The apostle James wrote that true religion is to care for orphans, to care for widows, and to not be defiled by the world. We often define these words of James to be; if we care for orphans, if we care for widows, and if we are different than the world we can belong. We don’t have to care for orphans to belong, but when we know we belong we will care for those who need an environment of belonging. We don’t have to care for widows to be loved, but when we know we are loved we will care for those who have no one to care for them. We don’t have to avoid acting like the world to be loved by God, but when we know we are loved by God we will dependent upon Him and we will no longer desire to depend on the ways of the world.
Religious ways are often ways that we place upon ourselves to justify who we are or to justify being loved in some way. We create rules and regulations that we place upon ourselves that cannot change us internally but only serve to condemn the character and nature of our own hearts. Because these things cannot change our internal ways, we tend to condemn others when we see them violating the rules. In honesty, we do this to appease the guilt of own hearts. We become judgmental of others because we are living in a judgment of ourselves in some way. God’s love for us is measured by His love for us and not our love for Him. Jesus died for us so that we could find our own death in Him and then find our true eternal life in Him. It is a gift of our Father’s love for us, not His response to our love for Him. Our love is a response to His love, and it comes by a revelation of His love for us. It is not a method of religion but a response to and of relationship.
Colossians 2:20 Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations— 21 “Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle,” 22 which all concern things which perish with the using—according to the commandments and doctrines of men? 23 These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.
An appearance of wisdom and self-imposed religion is not the true wisdom of God. False humility is based upon a condemnation of ourselves and a rejection of God’s unconditional love for us. Religious rules and regulations can only discipline our flesh, and they cannot transform our hearts. Religion demands a structure, while relationship with God empowers an influence. Building a structure won’t build a temple of God’s presence but being a dwelling place of God will give a way of life that exhibits being a temple of God. We will shine like light into the darkness and not merely be a hidden place of light within walls that hide us from the darkness of the world.
Religion seeks to build a structure or system that seeks to destroy anyone or anything outside of that structure or system. Relationship with God empowers us to be a dwelling place of God by His Spirit that gives life to the world around us and inspires others to become a dwelling place of God’s presence within the boundaries of who they are.
Blessings,
Ted J. Hanson
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House of Bread Ministry
3210 Meridian St.
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