I was talking with a friend of mine this morning about religion.
Religion has been on my brain for as long as I was aware I had a brain. For definition, religion is man’s attempt to please God. There are different definitions, but I have found this one to sum it up pretty well.
Many people confuse faith with religion, and there certainly is an element of faith in religion, but faith is not required for religion. In fact, many times religion is in direct opposition to faith.
Religion killed Jesus, religion is powerful all by itself.
There are many good aspects about religion, and I am not debating the merits of established religion, but most often religion is what is left after faith runs out. Other times religion springs up to run faith out. In the post modern area religion is something you do and faith is something you read about.
When people start reading about faith a funny thing happens – they want to experience it for themselves. Read about blind eyes opening, deaf ears hearing, the lame walking, terminal illness being healed, the dead walking and it causes questions to rise. Inevitably, those questions lead back to religion, specifically why what we do does not line up to what we are told we are supposed to do. If the point of religion is to please God, how can we please Him if we aint doin what He told us to do?
It turns out we can’t.
Read further and we find that the ONLY way to please God is by faith, and pleasing God without it is impossible.
And yet – we drive faith out of everything by turning it into a religion.
I know some will say that religion is faith, and I do believe that is how it all starts. The thing is, we take what God did in the past and invariably create a pattern to replicate it in the future. Let’s say I was reading in the Bible about God blessing those who give. I take that word (hearing) and apply some faith to it (substance of things unseen) and pray for an hour for God to bless me. The next day there is a check in my mailbox, and thing hoped for becomes real. Experience now tells me that “If I pray for and hour about being blessed – God will bless me with a check in my mailbox.” I now make a point to pray an hour every day so that He will do it again”.
And it doesn’t happen.
Undeterred, I muster up some faith (thing hoped for) and keep at it for a month.
Still nothing.
I haven’t forgoten what God did and determine to believe harder for the blessing of a check in the mailbox. Before long I am praying to have faith for faith assuming that what is wrong is my activation. If I can just perfect my 1 hour prayer the exact same way I performed it the first time – God will most certainly bless me again with a check in my mailbox.
I have just created a religion.
Here is what I think happens. The first time I prayed required genuine faith. The second time I prayed still required faith, but now it was tainted by experience. There is still a measure of faith exercised the second time I pray, but I have now injected the outcome. I am no longer open to God moving in an unpredictable creative way and in fact have created a box for God to work in – the check in my mailbox. If God stops blessing me in my prayer time and I keep at it in “faith” looking for the blessing in the same exact way – that is religion. I am trying to please God.
I am convinced of one thing – God never does the same thing twice. In fact I think He is unable to as it goes against His very nature. Nothing in our natural experience is identical. Not one blade of grass, or snow flake or drop of rain or grain of sand. There is nothing predictable about our planet or the universe it spins within, everything is in constant creative motion.
The only place you find replication and predictability is in man.
God makes curves and man makes lines.
Just look around at your surroundings, everything man makes is in nice little boxes. Everything we design strives to be predictable and tidy and when it behaves differently it is broken.
This planning and control has filtered into everything we do – especially church. Attend most services and you will see the same pattern: 3 fast songs 2 slow – announcements – offertory – preaching – application – ministry – football. This pattern is repeated every Sunday in every denomination in every city in the world.
Why – because it works?
Because it is predictable, repeatable, convenient, safe, and familiar.
Jesus said in Matthew 10: “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. Freely you received, freely give.”
Just imagine what would happen in our churches if we did that instead!
My friend and I were thinking about how God could fit that into our Sunday morning services and we came to the conclusion only one thing would be required to make it happen.
Simply change the way we do Sunday morning service.
Actually make room for God to do what He does best – be creative.
Of course that will require faith, which seems to be in short supply in 2008. Perhaps we need to go back and start hearing again.