Religion is organizational. Religion boils down to people doing things to get to God (or gods). It is not necessarily a good or bad thing, but can be either. Motivations, good or bad, can include trying to please God, help God, know God, etc., or even evolve oneself into a god.
Relationship is personal. Person to person. The Living God and Creator made himself known from the beginning and even came into the world as a man named Jesus. The Bible says that God is love. The word love is translated as agape (unconditional) love. The evidence in people around the world and through the ages says that God comes at us with love. (The religious notions about man-made God may say many different things.) God desires a relationship with us, but our free will and resulting sin got in the way. God is the way-maker and He is Holy. He made a way for it be restored. Jesus is the way that He provided for each person ever born.
What about your deepest beliefs and convictions? Are they based on a religious core or a relational core? It is a simple question. But you may protest the question itself. After all, a loving God who makes a way for us by sending us his only son and allowing him to be slaughtered is a truly scandalous thing. But it doesn't end there as this son Jesus was raised to life and lives today as King of Kings over the universe and everything in it. He will live inside you too if you accept him and believe in him to forgive you of sin.
God is not religious. He is God.
Jesus is not a Christian. He is the Christ, the Savior of the world, and you, and me.
Relationship Words:
Relationship is personal. Person to person. The Living God and Creator made himself known from the beginning and even came into the world as a man named Jesus. The Bible says that God is love. The word love is translated as agape (unconditional) love. The evidence in people around the world and through the ages says that God comes at us with love. (The religious notions about man-made God may say many different things.) God desires a relationship with us, but our free will and resulting sin got in the way. God is the way-maker and He is Holy. He made a way for it be restored. Jesus is the way that He provided for each person ever born.
What about your deepest beliefs and convictions? Are they based on a religious core or a relational core? It is a simple question. But you may protest the question itself. After all, a loving God who makes a way for us by sending us his only son and allowing him to be slaughtered is a truly scandalous thing. But it doesn't end there as this son Jesus was raised to life and lives today as King of Kings over the universe and everything in it. He will live inside you too if you accept him and believe in him to forgive you of sin.
God is not religious. He is God.
Jesus is not a Christian. He is the Christ, the Savior of the world, and you, and me.
Relationship Words:
Romans 5:1 GWT Now that
we have God’s approval by faith, we have peace with God
because of what our Lord Jesus Christ has done.
Romans 6:23 GWT The
payment for sin is death, but the gift that God freely gives is
everlasting life found in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Philippians 3:8-9 GWT I
consider everything else worthless because I’m much better off knowing Christ
Jesus my Lord….I threw it all away in order to
gain Christ and to have a relationship with him. This means that I didn’t receive God’s
approval by obeying his laws. The opposite is true! I have God’s approval
through faith in Christ.
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