Wisdom 8 Religion, Relationship and Revelation?

[HKHaugan]

Wisdom 8 Religion, Relationship and Revelation?

 Three ‘R’s’ and a question mark. Revelation is the key word to understand the difference between belief in Jesus and all other belief systems.   Why is this important?

First, belief is an individual invisible process dealing with what can’t be seen. Think again about this constantly repeated theme upon which all these articles have been based---100% of everything we do is based on what we can’t see. Belief, being the obvious basic unseen thing that all human beings do. Everyone makes choices and decisions about the meaning of life, existence and daily living based on something they believe. So, they choose or devise some way, some system that provides a morality, spirituality, personality, that deals with the unseen. Everyone is religious by nature. Religion is self-made or institutionally offered. Take your pick.

But, before you pick, there’s a problem that haunts all our choices. It’s unseen human imperfection. There are no perfect human beings. Every single person born into this world experiences insecurity, aloneness, hostility, rejection, divisiveness, separation, imbalance, greed, abuse, grief and conflict; the stuff of imperfection. Every person who is willing to face these inner issues feels like a flower cut away from its roots, like trying to open a door with no handle or living in a tenement apartment across from an elegant pent house neighborhood with an invisible social barrier that can never be crossed. The Bible calls what causes all this, sin, the spiritual disease that plagues us from birth.

So, can that which is imperfect due to sin perceive, receive or conceive a way to deal with imperfection or get a handle on what is ultimately perfect?  Any belief system called religion is primarily a humanly derived attempt to deal with human imperfection and its insecurities. Imperfect humanity needs a revelation. Something from outside one’s sin-centered self that can deal with its multiple imperfections that can’t be physically seen.

Secondly, the question arises. Who or what can you trust to make all those choices in that 100% unseen dimension of right and wrong? Most people are oblivious to this fact that motivation too is invisible. Since we live in physical bodies we assume that everything we see is what motivates us. Wrong. It’s the unseen process of choosing based on unseen belief emerging from unseen conditioning that formed the unseen mental reasoning behind the unseen process of making choices. Who’s in charge of the unseen? Imperfect me? Get what I mean?

Thirdly, every person has their own belief system. Every system except one, is a self-defining experience, a personal encounter with an internal feeling, an apparition, an angelic figure or other supernatural phenomena. The Greeks for instance, concluded human emotionality was sourced in a pantheon of gods.   There was a god for every emotion and attitude; capriciousness, anger, lust, conflict and so on. Norse mythology is a panorama of seasonal mutually devious gods dying in Winter and rising in Spring after a huge annual battle in Ragnarok (Valhalla). Buddhism is the result of its founder having a momentary insight that grew out of his inner conflict between suffering and pleasure that evolved into a system of meditation and self-denial. Hinduism is a series of endless incarnations that merge into an impersonal ‘all’ in which individuality disappears into bliss. Islam emerged from the inner conflict of a fierce military conqueror who claimed to be a prophet. In the midst of his emotional turmoil, he received a vision from an angel, not God, resulting in the writing of the Koran.

When you research these various world religions you discover three common threads, founding individuals, environmental influence, lack of prophetic and historic preparation for their arrival. Add three more. They originate in an imperfect individual’s interpretation of an inner experience, coupled with a magnetic personality, reacting to a harsh environment. All these founders, by admission, express their imperfection.

This dynamic of inner turmoil is scattered throughout humanity. It needs proper identification. Sin is its cause. In many cases it is seen in withdrawal and even among individuals whose religion is no religion. The religion of non-religion called atheism believes in believing in not believing and being hostile toward all belief outside of ‘not-believingism.’ Then there is the religion of indifference, agnosticism, whose followers simply say you can’t know or understand so don’t try. But, the fact is, in the end, all these individuals who have started religions, whether personal or institutional, die.

A second thought about religion. How much did environment and culture affect the individuals who are the founders of religions? Norse religion was tempered by the extreme differences between Summer with its long days of light fading into Winter with its days of total darkness. Islam, with its conflicted founder born in a hot arid desert, in a conflicted multi-tribal culture struggling for identity. Buddhism and Hinduism emerging from a massive culture where physical and depressive suffering from poverty appeared unanswerable except through some form of mental and emotional escape. Astrology is an escape into the outer universe with its complicated belief in planetary influences and conjunctions. Superstition and Spiritism too, are a projection of an individual’s unpleasant experiences.

One more very important point must be made. Since religion originates in singular individuals and their interpretation of life, what went before them? What preceded them that verified their claims? Look at the so-called major religions from Islam to Buddhism, to Hinduism, to Scientology, Mormonism, B’Hai and on and on. There was no historic or prophetic preparation for them. They just popped out of nowhere. They just appeared on the scene and gained followers. How many charismatic leaders have come to the surface in history? They come with the idea they have a better way of dealing with the unseen.  Where are they now?

Jesus reveals an entirely different approach. He reveals the opposite of religion which is a personal relationship with the One Creator God. A personal relationship with God in Jesus is a belief system that is spiritual, personal as well as relational. Relationship is the real unseen in our everyday experience. It is the reality of interpersonal exchange. It’s how we spend most of our time and effort, being relational. Due to sin it’s where we feel the loneliest and most needy. How do we deal with that?   How can we be perfectly right, not feel alone and be confident in the relational life we live as we walk through this world?

Let’s look at the relational faith of Jesus and His life. He was historically and prophetically prepared for by dozens of writers and one nation of people over many centuries. His Holy birth born of a virgin, His perfect life in the Holy Spirit, His perfect sacrifice on the Cross, and His Resurrection proving His perfection, were prophesied. He was God’s Son and everything He did was fulfilling all that was the preparation for His arrival. While He lived He fulfilled perfectly an ethical system that was intended to correct humanity’s personal and relational imperfection many centuries before He came.

His recorded unjust execution and death were detailed in the Bible as was the fact He rose from the dead. He was seen, heard and related to among hundreds over a period of fifty days. Jesus was by no means a guru who just happened on the scene. These multi-personal experiences, the history and prophecy, confirm the source of His personality. His mission, ministry and focus had been prepared for over many centuries. The expectation of a One God who would reveal Himself had been a built-in hope in the human soul. That’s what makes a relationship with Jesus a replacement of man-made religion. Religion is human cultural hope manipulated and controlled. Jesus is our eternal relational hope realized, God in the flesh, the unseen dimension proven and stabilized.

Religion is structured spiritual control. A relationship with Jesus is looking forward to how He will reveal Himself from the time we wake up until we go to bed at night. Revelation is His influence from one moment to the next. It is a relational freedom choosing to let Him be the Lord of every next moment, occasion, event and circumstance. This is why spiritual sight, hearing and listening is so important. Revelation is the Holy Spirit bringing our consciousness awake to the mind and heart of Jesus.

The Holy Spirit reveals that the Cross is not a religious symbol but the relational way to live in a world where death defines life and emotion the behavior in it. The Cross is choosing to live by faith in the risen Jesus’ presence as opposed to following the whispering voices of fear, pride and rejection that tempt our aloneness to live for momentary self-satisfaction.

What we have in Jesus Christ is a relational God who came from Heaven and personally revealed Himself as the Son of His Father whose will was His purpose. He came to reveal that God the Father loves us and wants us to think, feel and act like Him so, to relate to us. He was born in a human body, lived and died, then rose from the dead. After this, He sent His Holy Spirit, to enable Jesus to come and live in a person’s heart by faith. He builds an eternal relationship with each person who trusts Him. This whole sequence of events is recorded in Scripture which God Himself revealed was His Word. The One and only living God revealing Himself to all those who would believe in Him and trust Him with their lives.

Therefore, with Jesus Christ, we are no longer looking at a religion. Rather it is a personal heart-to-heart relationship with the One and only living God who created everything. He is eternally spiritual, personal and relational. Therefore, we discard religion and replace it with relationship, an eternal relationship with Jesus who brings the Father and the Spirit to forgive us and restore us into working spiritual beings living a human life. It is a relational life, an eternal relational life in which God is constantly revealing Himself to us.

So how do you tell a relational church from a religious church? The Body of Christ is the revelation Jesus has given that each believer makes up His Relational Body in this world. He loves us and cares for us personally. If there are structures, denominations and home meetings that promote the relational nature of Jesus through His Word, they are made up of spiritual brothers and sisters who believe His Word and accepted Him as Savior from sin and Lord of every next moment. Then you know the institutional forms are serving the Lord of lords and King of kings.

Jesus reveals that relationship replaces religion, that the invisible dimension is spiritual and can be seen with spiritual eyes and heard with spiritual ears. He reveals Himself as the way to live where we are, the truth to live by and the life to live eternally. He reveals Himself as the eternal Creator and the One through Whom God is experienced. He reveals Himself as the relational healer who closes the gulf between us and God. He reveals the Holy Spirit who brings all the mind and quality of Jesus into our mind and heart. He reveals that He is loved by His Father and that His Father’s will for us is a constantly loving realtionship with Him and that we share it with others around us. The mission we have been given is to reveal to friends and neighbors what Jesus has revealed to us. Jesus is our testimony and our witness that a personal relationship with God is available to everyone. This is where wisdom begins.