Religion or relationship: Isn't that our choice?
We can do things out of a sense of duty. That is religion, and it's a killer.
Or we can choose to let Jesus live out his life through us. Our relationship with him causes us to respond as he did. The love of Christ compels us.
The two may look the same sometimes, but their effect is profoundly different.
3 replies on “Religion or Relationship”
Looking at this at face value, it looks black or white; but, there are many shades of gray, ie , culture, nomenclature, etc. As I grow older, I think I’m a little less dogmatic!
Hi Felicity,
I so agree..I added a blogpost some time back on here called “Religion verses the Gospel”…It also could read “Religion or Relationship”..very similiar
Thanks for sharing!
Richard, I agree. This was intended to be a somewhat provocative post in order to get people thinking. Sometimes things aren’t quite so clear. However, in general, I do believe that many Christians act out of a sense of duty, of what they know they ought to do, rather than from that love relationship they have with Jesus. And Christianity lived that way becomes a chore, a rule-book, a rather dull and mundane doing-what-you-ought-to-do rather than a vibrant life of following the Holy Spirit.
It’s the difference between the Old and New Covenant (which I think I cover in a later post. I’m in Trinidad at the moment and so wrote three weeks worth of posts in a couple of days). In the Old Covenant, the law acts as a schoolmaster–and that’s good. But in the New Covenant, His laws are written on our hearts, and we walk in relationship with Jesus through the Holy Spirit.