Religion or Relationship, Which Would You Rather Have?

[HKHaugan]

A preacher, reaching an emotional pitch on radio, let go a fiery illustration to make his point about fickle human nature. “People are so lost that if someone came out on the street with a dead rat on the end of a stick and said, “Follow me”, there would be those who would.” While that may be a little over the top it describes exactly what has happened over the centuries, in a bit more sophisticated fashion of course. That fashion is religion, man’s verbal and visible attempt to deal with the invisible spiritual dimension. Therein lays the problem, man, all by himself, attempting to answer his dilemma of finding himself alone--- individually and personally alone. What do I believe? Who do I trust? How do I act? ---are the questions that dog him every day.

God has tendered the perfect solution. Rather than a religion He offers us a relationship around which everything is constructed. Religion is about what you do to earn your way to some kind of utopia. A relationship is how God works to share His life with you. He has revealed Himself not religiously but relationally in the person of Jesus Christ, ““My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working (John 5:17).” The summation of His work was the Cross, dying there to make Himself available through the words of the Bible, the language of faith and the experience of living relationally with Him in its light. His work is building a relationship with us as we begin to believe in Him, accept His presence and live in accord with His teaching. In light of that light our work is not to earn anything but to receive. When Jesus was asked what had to be done to do the work of God He said, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent (John 6:29).” He has done all the work. On the Cross He bulldozed a path for us to walk by defeating the devil and his work. Now we work at letting Jesus work in our minds, hearts and spirits. He works at reshaping us with His Spirit, His love and His faith.

The Bible is a relational conversation between God and anyone who reads it, believer or unbeliever. It makes sense to those who are open to its inspiration. You find yourself reacting personally to what it is saying to your heart. It may start with the mind but your heart reacts to the feeling it produces and your spirit will affirm or reject depending on where your mind is in belief.

Notice how when you read it you find yourself reacting to its words. That is God the Holy Spirit either saying ‘watch out!’ or ‘you’re right on track.’ Let’s let Him take us a step further. Notice as you read that ideas may pop into your head as you peruse a thought or story. Personal experiences, memories, parallels to recent events in your life may occur. Everything from guilt to agreement, from comfort to discomfort, from question to answer and from wondering what’s true and what isn’t, all of it may surface in your consciousness. That’s being nudged in a way that is a calling to discern their meaning, chew on them and apply them.

What we know about the Bible is that regardless of the mindset anyone carries into it, the Spirit of God is affecting the inner life of the person reading it. No other book anywhere has that qualitative power. “So is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it (Is.55:11).”

Now say a person with a great deal of skepticism reads it. He may have a prior view, an attitude of rejection because he thinks it’s ‘religious’ or fantasy or full of fairy tales. Those reactions in themselves are a sign of internal processing that lifts out, exposes, the nature of the reader. The intensity of a reaction is a good indicator that something much deeper is taking place. Emotional reaction is a good gauge to tell where a person might be when it comes to God. When a reaction is something more than just unemotional dismissal, be patient. Individuals have to move at their own pace. Some may suggest they are intellectually superior to it. This too says a lot about the person. This is always a learning process for both the reader and the listener since every situation is new and needs openness to the Spirit’s leading. The more the experience the more the challenge and enjoyment of God’s presence.

Spiritual life, the life that is the origin of the visible, comes through Jesus and His Word. It reveals His nature and His plan for His Creation and everyone in it. It is loaded with ideas, concepts and principles. It’s full of belief statements, principles, concepts that make up the experience of being human. Those statements are described by nouns that God has motivated us to use to share who and what we are. Faith, hope, love, hate, evil, sin, God, Christ, salvation, Cross, life, death, resurrection, eternity as examples. Add to that the one who processes all of it---‘I, me, myself’---individual personal conscious reality---God’s image in the flesh. “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well (Ps.139:13-14).”