Relationship or Religion?

WHAT IS RELIGION?:

Religion relies on mankind and their own efforts for God's acceptance, and to enter Heaven, by rule-keeping, whether their good deeds outweigh their bad deeds, rituals, repetitive prayers, or any other way, other than the perfect obedience, and finished crosswork of Jesus Christ.

Is this really what God wants? Is it possible to earn our own way to Heaven? Are human beings really good enough by God's standard, even when they do good things? The answer to all of these is, NO!

MAN IS NOT GOOD WITHOUT GOD

In the flesh, no matter how many good deeds and rituals we perform, how many prayers we say, or how good our rule-keeping is, we are always going to fail to live up to God's standard of perfect righteousness, in deed and thought, so we're not good enough, without Him, to enter Heaven. We humans have sinned against God's law, we are incapable of obtaining perfect righteousness by the law, for it was made to increase the power of sin, and it condemns us. The penalty of our sin against God's law is death, and breaking just ONE commandment was enough to be stoned to death, in the Old Testament, nobody could go back and start over, it was too late. The law was made to help man realize his desperate need for a Savior. Only someone who is perfect, with sinless blood had to pay for our sins, and someone who is also the very source of life, to defeat death, and that perfect person and source of life, was and is Jesus Christ. God, Himself, came down in mortal, human flesh, lived a sinless life, and was condemned to death by the law, in our place. He died a sinner's death! The burden of all sins(past, present and future) was put on Jesus. Even if we tried to pay the price for our own sins, we would never get back to God, we'd be in Hell, and separated from God, forever. Jesus pleaded guilty for our sins against God's law, purged them on the Cross, and forgave every one of them, the moment He shed His blood, so that all who BELIEVE that, will be given His Life, forever. Every believer is made righteous, holy, clean, and perfect, in Him. God only declares righteous, those who put their faith in Jesus Christ for eternal salvation. Every believer is SEALED by God's Spirit or the Holy Spirit, until the day of the Rapture.

Jesus didn't come to establish a new religion. It was religious people, the Pharisees and Scribes, who hated Jesus. The very first religion was Paganism, which proves that religion is definitely man-made, but the Most High God existed long before any religion was established, even before the world, itself, was formed. God is not bound by time, He is bound by eternity. He is eternal. His name is I AM because, He just is. He has no beginning and no end, He IS the Beginning and the End. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the complete opposite of religion, it's about God's greatest act of love, when He made a way, and the only way, for mankind to be reconciled to Him, through faith in His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, who is also God; God the Son, 2nd person of the Godhead, and the Word of God.

Once one is saved, he or she becomes a new creation in Christ, and are given a new "heart of flesh", a heart that loves like God, and when a believer rests in Jesus Christ, and allows Him to live through him or her, He will renew their minds, daily, to be in agreement with who they are, in Him, to help them decide to act on that love. His love pouring out of their new hearts will not want to steal, murder, commit adultery, dishonor parents, nor do anything else the law says we shouldn't do. Rules don't fix sin, Jesus does! He not only forgives ALL our sins, but He also takes them away! Rules will only increase sinful behavior, but Grace causes sinful behavior to decrease. Only LOVE can change our sinful attitudes and actions. Believers are the branches, and the branches don't work, nor struggle, to produce fruit, they simply rest. The vine works and helps the branches produce fruit. Jesus is our vine. He works, we receive the benefits. How we live and use our faith, through His help, should help point the lost to Him. He chooses to make Himself known through believers, in an attempt to draw lost souls to Himself, so that they might obtain eternal salvation. Believers will also gain rewards for how their faith led people to Jesus Christ, at the Judgement Seat of Christ.

Sin will cause earthly consequences, but at the same time, there's nothing we can or can't do to make God love us any more or less. Just like a good, earthly father, our Heavenly Father, no matter what His children do, His love for them will remain the same. Once one is physically born of his or her mother, he or she will remain physically born, and the same is for someone who is spiritually reborn of God. A birth is always permanent. Believers have the spiritual seed of God in them, and are no longer entitled as children of the Devil. Nothing can affect one's salvation because, what affects the body cannot affect the soul, since the body and the soul are separate. People are souls, not their bodies. Don't fear what or who can destroy the body, but cannot destroy the soul. Believers' bodies are the Holy Temple of God's Spirit, or the Holy Spirit, and they should take care of their bodies, but at the same time, their bodies are just vessels, and once they pass and leave the world, their bodies are of no use to them anymore. When believers are unfaithful to God, He remains faithful to them. He will never leave nor forsake them. His grip on them, is much tighter than their grip on Him. He keeps believers saved, and nobody or nothing can snatch them from His hand. God commended His love toward believers, that while they were still sinners, Christ died for them. He came to die for the sins of people who didn't even love Him back, that's how much God loves mankind. His love is unconditional. He did all the work for us. We shouldn't focus on how we live, but on how He lived, to obtain eternal salvation.

"Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit." -Titus 3:5

"For as by one man’s(Adam's) disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s(Jesus') obedience many will be made righteous." -Romans 5:19

We need to take the focus off ourselves, and put it on Jesus, alone. When we do that, then everything will improve with our sinful attitudes and actions. Nothing will improve if we try to do it all on our own, but with Christ, we can do all things, for He gives us His strength.

Religion is mankind's attempt to find and reach up to God, by earning salvation with their own human efforts.

The Gospel is God's attempt to find and reach down to mankind, by paying for our sins on a tree with His own death, forgiving us with His shed blood, rising from the dead on the 3rd day, and freely offering salvation and eternal life to everyone.

SALVATION CANNOT BE EARNED, IT IS A FREE GIFT.

OUR ONLY PART IS ONLY TO...JUST BELIEVE.