The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. (ESV)

Religion – I'm going to put this out there – has been one of the biggest tools of the enemy against the church.  I know some of us might reel back at that, so let’s dive into what I mean...  

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Merriam-Webster's dictionary defines “religion” as “a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices.” As humans, we have a long history of trying to make something happen our way. Think Moses striking the rock in the desert instead of talking to it (Num. 20) or Jonah going to the far ends of the Earth instead of where God wanted him to go (Jon. 1). There’s a reason Jesus told the story of the prodigal son (Lk. 15).  

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We have taken sayings, songs, and acts, all designed to point us closer to a God who is righteous, and we have instead tried to make the things righteousness in and of themselves. The enemy has taken what was meant to bring dependance and worship to our Father and tricked us into making it a system of independence and rules.  

I grew up in what I felt was a very religion-centered church. We sang the hymns, we said the creeds, and we never missed Sunday school. After a while, the things I did was what church was. But Paul drops this on us: God is righteousness, not man. There is no way to get to God on your own, as much as we try. Only through the gift of grace through Jesus’ death and resurrection can we receive his righteousness.  

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This is such a counter-intuitive idea in our culture. A free gift always brings up the thought, what’s the catch? Once, I remember getting a flier in the mail from a car dealership that said I had won a free gift; all I had to do was come claim it at the dealership. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, but I was young and naive, so in I went with dreams of a new truck dancing in my head. As I walked in, I was met by a very eager salesman who proceeded to inform me that, to get my free gift, I had to hear his pitch on the new cars. After 40 minutes of car knowledge being thrust on me, all I walked away with was a Chevy-branded notebook.

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How many of us have felt this way with religion? We fear that all we'll get from the experience is being told why I need to act a certain way, why I need to talk a certain way, and why I should look a certain way.  

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But the truth is, when we strip away our preconceived notions of “religion,” we find a God who is love. We find a God who broke himself apart to send the Son to take all of our junk on himself, who buried it all in a grave and rose again to make us new. It is a love that surpasses rules and regulations and instead plunges us into a life-transforming relationship with the Almighty God.  

Father, you are good. You loved us before we knew you. Father, help us to shed the cloak of our own works, the things we do to become our own misguided views of righteousness. Father, give us a passion for you. Amen.