Religion or relationship?

"The relationship of Jesus with the Father was characterized by ongoing prayer"







Do you consider yourself religious? What does religion mean to you? If you are religious do you pray? What do you pray for? Why should you pray?

Of course, there are many answers to these questions. Religion is a very important topic to most people. Almost everyone, even atheists and agnostics have an opinion about religion. With all due respect to Wikipedia and Webster, here is what they have to say about what “religion” is:

A religion is a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a supernatural agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.

So far so good, but any practice or belief system such as one defined by this definition does not describe Christianity does it? What do I mean by that? You see, Christianity is a relationship, not just a religion. The word that is missing from the typical defintion of religion, and a word that makes Christianity incredibly different than other “religions” is: relationship.

To illustrate, I’ll use a simple illustration. If you really want to know a person don’t you want to get to know them better? If you are engaged to a person to be married, don’t you want to know everything about them? You want to know what they like and dislike. You want to spend time with them. You want to talk to them all the time, don’t you?

Christian prayer has many definitions and types (i.e. praise, thanksgiving, supplication, confession and repentence). Jesus was once asked about prayer. In Matthew 6:5-6, He responded:

And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

In this passage, Jesus was not necessarily saying that praying in secrecy is the only place to pray. In the passage immediately before this scripture, we see that the context was that Jesus was emphasizing that the most richly productive, relationship-building method of prayer is one-on-one, just you and God. The sharing intimate times in secret, secluded prayer is precious to you and the almighty creator of the universe. You see, His desire for a relationship with us includes the desire to spend time alone with us, and its important because it’s a big part of how we get to know Him. There are dozens of examples of this throughout the Old and New Testament.

Beloved, no matter what you are going through today, its vitally important to understand that God wants to spend time with you. Why do you think He has made you? Love and a relationship, that’s why. He is pure love. Remember, my analogy to being engaged to be married and desiring to spend time with the one you love? Its an even more expansive and profound love than that even, for remember that God loved the world SO much, that he gave His only Son to die, rise from the grave, and ascend back to heaven to redeem and save those in the world. If you are not a Christian or not sure that you are, this message is for you, especially. To begin this relationship with the one true creator of the universe, you pray. Remember, prayer in its purest form is talking to and listening to God. Express your desire to Him to accept His gift of salvation through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and your relationship with God will begin.

I’ll close with this thought: think about how much time do you spend alone one-on-one with God each day. If you don’t spend but a few minutes each day with your spouse, or a close friend and then walk away like they don’t exist, what message are you sending that person, or God? Most close friends, and spouses would like you to spend more time with them than that, and so does God. So, do you have a religion or a relationship? Remember the words from the old gospel song:

"What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear,
what a priviledge to carry, everything to God in prayer,
O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer."

Keep the Faith and share it, today.
Blessings!
George