My Thoughts on Religion

I have a lot of thoughts on religion. I think most people do. Do you want to know what my thoughts are? Well, if you don't, then please, stop reading now because I'm going to share them.

Religion is out-dated. Religion brings rules and laws that we can never live up to. Religion brings guilt. Religion demands you cling to beliefs with no thought, no doubt and no investigation. Religion wants you to believe blindly with nothing more than a because I said so. Nobody needs religion.

Surprising coming from a Christian, isn't it? I must confess that religion (not any one in particular, but all of them) bores me. More than bore me, it makes nervous and uncomfortable. I do not like the idea of being told what to think. I do not like being told not to question. So why, you might ask, am I a Christian?

I do not subscribe to religion in the sense that most see it. What I have is far greater and of far more value. I have found what a writer much better than I describes as "a place where religion finally dies." I find that place in a relationship. A relationship with a personal God. Not some far-distant judge who hands out rulings with an iron fist and a terrible temper as I shiver in fear of condemnation, but a friendship with a Creator who yearns to love His creation.

There is such a vast difference between religion and a relationship. My God allows me to think, to make mistakes, to be forgiven. Gone is the guilt that religion brings in heavy doses because my debt has all ready been paid in full. By my friend. By my God. When my heart is heavy there is no better shoulder to lean on than the one will one day wipe all the tears from my eyes. When I am full of joy there is no one greater to dance with than the God who is the very Creator of joy. What a thought! A God who desires for me to have joy! A God who finds His joy in ME!

Religion is mundane, weary and restricting. My relationship with Jesus Christ is exciting, rejuvenating and freeing. What a fantastic difference.