the heart of religion

I recently viewed this video and it inspired me to write a blog post about the topic. I’ve been thinking about religion a lot lately, which is not something I normally do (think about religion, that is, not just think). But first, I want to say that I don't agree with everything in this video. I don't think Jesus was against religion, religion is a framework within which we can better understand God and through which we can serve Him. Granted, we have distorted and perverted it many times. But Jesus was against false religion, empty traditions and meaningless rituals, not religion in general. Or at least that is my understanding. Feel free to correct me if you think I am wrong, I am open to discussion. Anyway, this post elaborates on what I really think the heart of the matter is when it comes to religion, check it out.
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At the first young adults Bible study at my church I called out a fellow believer who said that lying was wrong. “Is lying really wrong?” I asked. “Does the Bible say that?” He answered by telling me that it was one of the 10 commandments and I quickly refuted that the 10 commandments spoke specifically about giving false witness about another person, but not generally about lying. He then looked at me a bit funny. Like I had suddenly turned green and morphed into an ogre-like personage. “Of course lying is wrong!” he said.

We ended up getting into a discussion about why lying was wrong, and I gave him a few examples of where lying had actually turned out to be beneficial in the Bible. Rahab hid the spies in Joshua 2 and was blessed by God by the preservation of her life, Shiphrah and Puah were midwives in Egypt who lied to protect the Hebrew babies and God blessed them because of this.

My friend agreed with these examples but said that they were extenuating circumstances. He then managed to find a few verses to display that the Bible does explicitly say that lying is wrong.

Now, before you jump to conclusions and categorize me as another one of those liberal new-ageist Christians who try and disprove age-old theology, hear me out.

My point in this argument was not to prove that lying was okay. The Bible is clear about lying and that Jesus desires us to be people of truth (check out Matthew 5:33-37, Psalm 31:18, Proverbs 30:8, Colossians 3:9, etc). But rather, my point was that God cares more about where your heart is and WHY you are lying (if you happen to be in a situation where you might need to lie) than about the lying itself. Maybe I’m way off base here, but I think that God cares more about your heart than He does about you making sure that you follow every single solitary rule. This is why Jesus was so aggressive in His words against the Pharisees and the religious leaders of His day. They were so obsessed with getting every detail and action down pat that they forgot about God altogether.

Again, my whole point here is not to say that lying is okay, or that we should not be attentive about our words and seek to be speakers of truth. But rather that if we only focus on lying, instead of focusing on the heart behind the lie, we will only be washing the outside of the bowl while the inside remains dirty. If we become obsessed with rules and regulations we may end up missing Jesus entirely. And that’s why Jesus hates empty religion. He doesn’t hate the Church, he doesn’t hate the Law. He loves the Church, He came to BUILD His Church. He loves the Law, He came to FULFILL the Law. He hates mindlessness. He hates emptiness. He hates meaningless tradition. He hates our pride and the fact that we think we can earn our salvation by following rules. He loves us and He loves GRACE.

So where does this leave us? Well, first with the realization that if we desire to follow Jesus then we need to get to the heart of things. We need to first allow God to get our hearts to the right place. Jesus was kind to the Samaritan woman who was ‘friendly’ because she had a soft heart. Jesus was harsh towards the religious Pharisees because their hearts were hardened. Your heart is what matters to God. If you can’t follow all the rules even though you love God and are trying so hard to get in line with Him... well, welcome to humanity, my friend. Yes, Jesus says that if we love Him we will obey His commands. But he says IF we LOVE Him. All our commandment adherence means nothing if our hearts aren’t in it.

Once you partner with God to get your heart there I can almost guarantee you that you won’t have to focus on all the rules anymore, because your heart will continually be refined and you will continually want to choose what is right and true and good. That is the beauty of it. Focus on the heart and your actions will follow. Focus on only your actions and... who knows you could end up a modern day Pharisee.

So stop stressing about the rules. If you want to be sanctified tell God that and then show Him by making an effort to get to know Him more (spend time in prayer, reading your Bible and doing His work). Then let Him work in you. Trust me, this will take time. But you’ll get there and one day you might realize that, hey, I don’t’ struggle with lying as much anymore. Or hey, I stopped watching porn. AWESOME! God’s work is supernatural, it’s like magic, it’s crazy the things He can do when we let Him into our hearts and ask Him so change it.

Jesus’ yoke is easy and His burden is light. We don’t have to do it all on our own. We don’t have to be legalistic and anal and rigid. We are called to freedom. That is what is so beautiful about the Gospel message. So go, friends, go and un-harden your hearts and be free in Christ Jesus.