Religion vs Real Livin'
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Religion:
How many of you were brought up in a religious home or went to some religious service on a regular basis?
Keep your hands up if you are still participating in religious service in that same religion of your youth.
How many of you would consider yourself as unaffiliated or non-denominational?
pew research study people leaving religion of their youth
why are people leaving the religion of their family? how about the people in the United States why are they leaving religion?how much of this is due to people not seeing the connection of religion to the outward actions of the people that claim it??
could it be that it doesnt embody life giving expression or real living, life to abundance Not about just beleiving the truth but about it expressing itself in how we live out our lives.people need to see faith/belief in action first before they will be interested in know its source.
Religion is based man’s attempt to reach God, or try to define God in his own image or create a worldview based on how they understand or perceive God to be.
Following a set of man made rules, often used to control or coerce people to do what they want you to do. Weaponized their force placed concept of God to somehow convince people to believe the way they did
Often in religious systems their is a disconnect between religious beliefs and the outward expression that positively represents the belief.
The only time in the new testament of the bible that we see Jesus get frustrated or angry is when he is challenging the religious leaders of his day.
Pharisees and Sadducees were the religious leaders of the day that were charged to propagate and enforce of over 600 laws they and their pretecessors created because they believed that the written law (10 commandments handed down by Moses) needed further interpretation and clarification.
These man made rules and regulations had weighed down the people of the time that wanted to be in a right relationship with God, but was made impossible in having to abide by such an impossible standard.
Jesus challenged these religious leaders, emphasizing instead the importance of a heart-felt relationship with God over strict adherence to the letter of the law.
Here is one instance:
Then Jesus was approached by Pharisees and scribes from Jerusalem, who asked, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they don’t wash their hands when they eat.” He answered them, “Why do you break God’s commandment because of your tradition? For God said: Honor your father and your mother; and, Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must be put to death. But you say, ‘Whoever tells his father or mother, “Whatever benefit you might have received from me is a gift committed to the temple,” he does not have to honor his father.’ In this way, you have nullified the word of God because of your tradition. Hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied correctly about you when he said:
This people honors me with their lips,
but their heart is far from me.
They worship me in vain,
teaching as doctrines human commands.”
Summoning the crowd, he told them, “Listen and understand: It’s not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth—this defiles a person.”
Then the disciples came up and told him, “Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?”
He replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father didn’t plant will be uprooted. Leave them alone! They are blind guides. And if the blind guide the blind, both will fall into a pit.”
Then Peter said, “Explain this parable to us.”
“Do you still lack understanding?” he asked. “Don’t you realize that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is eliminated? But what comes out of the mouth comes from the heart, and this defiles a person. For from the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, sexual immoralities, thefts, false testimonies, slander. These are the things that defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile a person.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside of it may also become clean.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of the bones of the dead and every kind of impurity. In the same way, on the outside you seem righteous to people, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. Otherwise, you have no reward with your Father in heaven. So whenever you give to the poor, don’t sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be applauded by people. Truly I tell you, they have their reward. But when you give to the poor, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
“Whenever you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, because they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by people. Truly I tell you, they have their reward. But when you pray, go into your private room, shut your door, and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. When you pray, don’t babble like the Gentiles, since they imagine they’ll be heard for their many words. Don’t be like them, because your Father knows the things you need before you ask him.
[unpack verses]
Two key concepts to help understand what Jesus came to do on earth: The Law and Righteousness
Law:
“Don’t think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.
Jesus’ - God in a human body (emannuel - God with us) came down and lived, died and rose to completely fulfilment of the Law that mankind was (and still is) powerless to fulfill on our own. So Jesus did it for us. This sets up the next concept of Righteousness.
This verse in Galatians helps:
I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.
Righteousness is:
Right standing with God
Living in right relationship with God and by extension with other people and even all of God’s creation
The reality is that we God had to do for us what was impossible for us to do on our own.
You see at just the right time, when we were still powerless (helpless, weak), Christ died for the ungodly.
Real Livin’:
Real Religion
If anyone thinks he is religious without controlling his tongue, his religion is useless and he deceives himself. Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
God’s work inside us should spill out and express itself on the outside.
Outward expression of faith does something to galvanize how our faith grows inside us.
This is how we have come to know love: He laid down his life for us. We should also lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has this world’s goods and sees a fellow believer in need but withholds compassion from him—how does God’s love reside in him? Little children, let us not love in word or speech, but in action and in truth.
A thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come!
Because of the Lord’s faithful love we do not perish, for his mercies never end. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness!
Religion emphasized:
Following the rules
Self-Reliance
Self-Righteousness
[Man’s rules are at odds with the spirit filled life God intends us to live]
Real Livin’ is focused instead on:
Being in relationship with God
God being accessible, available
Journey of partnership with God
God-reliance
God established righteousness
God’s desire that we live a full, purposeful, dependent life daily with him.
A relationship that is healthy, vibrant and life giving.
With our value and worth tied to being made by God, like God, and for God.
Paul provided a warning to those actively following Jesus:
Be careful that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit based on human tradition, based on the elements of the world, rather than Christ.
Caution:
If we are not careful though we can easily get off track (especially those who walk with Jesus for a while) and subtly slip into the belief that we have to somehow perform our way to acceptance by God.
Often we in our zeal and passion for our faith can somehow shift the focus off of drawing near to God to fill us and guide us into real livin’ to instead we think that through our effort
The self-reliance of man made religion has created this mentality and false philosophy that we need to clean ourselves up, then come to God for him to accept us. Or the lie that God helps those who help themselves.
instead the truth is that as we draw near to God he pours his life into us that flows out to those around us.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The law is not against such things. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
And because of all Christ has done for us:
Therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness (confidence), so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need.
