A Religion or a relationship?

What if God wanted your heart and not your religion?

What God wants above all else is your heart, not a place of honor, but the first place in your life!

You and I did not come from nowhere.

We did not fall from the sky, even though we were all created by the same Creator, whatever name you give Him...

We all come from a family or social background that obeys specific codes and values that most of us had to follow from an early age because it was the norm around us.

In my opinion, this has two consequences:

One that I would describe as positive

Another that I would describe as negative

I can already hear you asking yourself, “What is she talking about?” and that's perfectly normal.

The positive consequence, to return to our question, is the fact that consciously or unconsciously, some of us have made the effort to follow a set of rules even if we weren't always convinced deep down.

The negative consequence also stems from this very point: doing things without conviction, doing things to please a group of people or to gain a certain acceptance in society, the approval of certain people.

Anything that is not the product of conviction is sin, as we can see in Romans 14:23 (ESV) :

"But if you have doubts about whether or not you should eat something, you are sinning if you go ahead and do it. For you are not following your convictions. If you do anything you believe is not right, you are sinning"

Romans 14:23 (NLT)

While talking with two people whom I greatly respect recently, one on one day and the other the next, they mentioned this passage, which resonated differently with me even though I had heard it many times before.

I realized that any action we take without inner conviction not only counts for nothing, but worse still, is considered a sin.

What if God wanted your heart and not your "religiousness"?

Religion can be defined as a set of beliefs, practices, and rules that people follow in an attempt to get closer to God or earn His approval.

It often manifests itself through rituals (prayers, fasting, festivals, traditions) and moral or social obligations, but does not necessarily imply a personal and living relationship with God.

What about religiosity?

Religiosity is when form takes precedence over substance. It is when we perform gestures and rituals, not out of love or conviction, but to ease our conscience or to be seen.

Religiosity is like giving a gift to someone you never take the time to get to know. You do what you think you should do, but without love, without exchange, without relationship.

When Adam sinned, mankind was deprived of the glory of God, as we read in Luke 19:10 (KJV).

«  For the Son of man is come to seek and to save THAT WHICH was lost »

Luke 19:10 (KJV)

Before sin, everything was perfect. God had created Man to live eternally in connection with Him, but sin created what we might call a disconnect between the creature and the Creator, and it was from that point on that Man felt the need to establish religion in order to draw closer to God. However, despite all efforts, it remained something “imperfect.”

But hold on, because the rest of the story is quite different...

In His infinite goodness toward humanity, God gave mankind an invaluable gift in the person of Jesus.

No matter how hard people tried to draw closer to God, something was missing, and only this perfect, flawless gift could redeem humanity and restore all that had been lost (the connection I mentioned earlier, as well as all the privileges associated with that connection).

This is the very meaning of the Easter celebration we celebrate today.

God gave His Son for you, for the forgiveness of your sins, for your healing, for your restoration on all levels, no matter what you have experienced so far, in short, to give you life, that is, a new life or even life within life.

This may sound philosophical, but yes, unfortunately, it is possible to have life without life. It is possible to live without living!

However, there are only two conditions for experiencing it:

Accept Jesus as the Lord and Savior of your life & consciously and deliberately aspire to build a relationship with your God: an intimate relationship in which you will learn to know Him, discover Him, discover what He loves, discover His will for you in order to obey it... but this time with full conviction and not religiously!

To conclude our reflection for today, we can therefore say that everything is first and foremost a question of intimacy with God, but to have this intimacy, you have to want it, to deeply aspire to build it, because it is a process.

Intimacy is built over time.

Don't they say that Rome wasn't built in a day?

What God wants above all else is your heart, and not just a place of honor, but the first place in your life!

On that note, I wish you a very happy Easter, for He is indeed risen and reigns forever and ever.

Take the time to meditate on our exchange in peace and quiet, to gain some perspective on all this.

In the meantime, I say to you... Until next time!

We are together!

SBE

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