Getting To Know God Better 11

"Religion and relationship.

Is your relationship with Jesus religious only? What I mean by that is, since you learned of Jesus, has your knowledge base of how Jesus operates in your life stayed about the same?

Let's get this straight; going to Church or being a part of a ministry in any way is wonderful and fulfilling. There are no real negatives concerning being a part of a congregation and any role that you have is helpful to others and beneficial to your own spiritual health. You can go to church and be religious and have a personal relationship with Jesus, but you can also go to church and be religious and not have a relationship with Jesus. Religion is learned and practiced primarily through conditioning. Most denominations teach/preach a philosophy that incorporates the teachings of the Bible and the teachings of the church denomination. Sometimes the church dogma, polity is the primary focus and that is religion.

That being said I really just want to focus on relationship. Here's why. There are many religions and to be religious you can be a part of any religious order, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhism, etc. You can be very religious and not have any relationship with Jesus, the Christ. Religion can produce good works and even good morals and it brings with it cultural significance, but religion cannot be born again and the Holy Spirit does not come and dwell within the religious, just because they are religious.

The Spirit of God is reserved for the believing Christian; one who has recognized that Jesus is the Savior of mankind and that they need a Savior to save them from their own demise. You can't be a Christian without believing that Jesus is Christ.

Everybody knows John 3:16, but have you understood John 3:18 "He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." 

This isn't a very popular passage with the "All Paths lead To God" group. There are today millions of Christians that believe that they know better than God how to do the salvation thing. Many, many Christians want to include other religious philosophies in the one big eclectic "god in the sky" philosophy. None of the rhetoric is biblical, but no problem, they will have god on their terms and they believe that they know better than God how to put it all together. That's the trouble with scripture. You have a choice to believe it or deny it. But the real trouble is that people want to deny it but receive the benefits of saying they believe it. That's the group I was talking about, the group that "since they learned of Jesus, their knowledge base of how Jesus operates in their life stayed about the same? This same group doesn't believe John 3:18, their Bible stops at John 3:16.

Where does your Bible stop?