Rules or Relationship?

Religion is something we often confuse for a relationship.

Just because you go to church, wear certain clothes, or even read your Bible, doesn't mean you have a relationship with Jesus Christ. 

A relationship takes work. It's not as simple as following certain rules. To make a real relationship work healthily and happily you have to learn about the other person, their desires, their wants, their needs. You have to have a desire inside to want to please them. 

The confusion, unfortunately, often starts in our local churches. If you go to a church you will notice how the members dress, how they talk, act, etc. Not all, but many, of these churches hold their members to a certain standard of living and dressing and acting, which in itself, isn't necessarily a bad thing. Unfortunately, when the rules begin to take the place of your relationship with God, you've gone to far.

If you have noticed yourself falling out of your devotion time but following the rules of your church, I'd advise you to regroup and reevaluate. Why is it that you are following those rules? Why do you wear those clothes? Why do you go to every church service? Why are you singing in the choir? Why are you tithing?

Is it to please people in your church? Is it even to please yourself?

Or are you genuinely doing it to please God Himself?

T h i n k   a b o u t   t h a t .

And once you've come to a conclusion, get back in the Word of God. Dive deeper into your relationship with Him. Challenge yourself to go an entire week of waking up 15 minutes early to spend reading about Him in His Word, getting to know your Savior, and praying and talking to Him. Challenge yourself to listen to worship music on the way to church, school, work, or errands in the morning. Just one car ride a day. Try it, I dare you.

Proverbs 8:17 I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently find me.

Psalm 119:105 Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path

2 Peter 3:18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.

The more you learn about your Savior, I promise you, the more you will fall in love with Him. Life is not about following a set of rules or looking or acting a certain way. Jesus gave Himself as a sacrifice to save us from those rules and to give us a relationship and eternal life in Heaven with Him. Don't miss out on that beautiful fact because you are too busy measuring your skirt for Sunday School.

In the Bible, Jesus was upset with the Pharisees because He commanded us to keep the Sabbath holy, and they added all of these stipulations to that commandment. They created a rule saying that if you threw something into the air with one hand, you had to catch it with the other or you were not keeping the Sabbath holy. Sounds ridiculous right? 

Well how do you think it looks to God when He commands us to be modest and we are over here kneeling on the ground to measure how many inches above our knee that our skirt falls or we squint our eyes to see if any single hair is touching a boy's ear? It's a modern day version of the rules the Pharisees made up. We are adding to what God commanded (which was to be modest) and adding to His Word is a sin.

Proverbs 30:5-6 Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar.

Deuteronomy 4:2 You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you.

Now don't get me wrong, rules are necessary at a school or in certain situations, however, if we become more obsessed with following the rules than having a relationship, we are in for a very long and difficult road. One thing that has burdened my heart since I was in high school was that, in our Christian Schools, we hold our high school kids to a certain standard, we dress them up, cut their hair and judge their behavior, but we fail to teach them about who Christ really is and WHY they should want to behave this way.

We fix up the outside but never work on the inside.

I watched too many of my friends in high school get fed up with the "rules of Christianity" and walk away from God altogether to ever allow that to happen in my own life or family. I want to live the kind of life that people will know from the moment they meet me that I love Jesus with all of my heart and soul. I want them to see Him living inside me and know that I walk with Him daily. If I break one of their added on rules, then fine. If I slip up and sin, it is life. But I want people to see that no matter whether or not I may screw up (because I will, it's inevitable because I'm a sinner), that I love Jesus with my whole heart and soul, and their rules and religion won't ever change me. Only He can.

I challenge you to refocus your efforts. Stop worrying about the rules and the religion of it. Open your Bible. Pray. Get closer to Him and learn about Him. See the love, mercy, grace, forgiveness and compassion He had and learn to live that way.

I promise you, your Christian walk will get so much easier when you put down the rules and pick up the relationship.