Religion Regulates—Jesus Saves

What is the essence of “religion”? Find your own way to God and try to do what’s right.

Basically, religions come in two categories: self-made and self-focused. Self-made religions are mankind’s attempts to explain life, death, and the meaning of life. They may have begun as myths, legends, stories, or an individual’s private revelations. Most are associated with some person's name such as Joseph Smith, Mary Baker Eddy or L. Ron Hubbard.

The other category, self-focused religions, ask personal questions. What is going on internally? Am I at peace? Do I feel good about myself? How might exercises and meditation help me achieve a higher state of consciousness? Examples would be yoga as practiced by Hindus or Buddhism.

Each religion has a code of conduct, a set of rights vs. wrongs, and some established leadership and worship experiences. So, you might rightly ask, how would Christianity be any different?

Ah! Allow me to answer that. The Bible is the story of God seeking man. Every patriarch, king, prophet, and religious leader in the Bible confronted a word from the Lord, which most had not sought and many did not follow. God is portrayed as the “hound of heaven,” moving toward mankind as each of us tries to move away from Him.

The stories in the Bible are about real people with real sinful souls recorded for all time with faults, foibles, and folly. Rather than being about a state of perfection, the Bible is about the heartache of trying to live without a personal relationship with God.

And last, Christianity is about how none of us—no matter how much chanting we do, steps we kiss, services we attend, or good works we perform—can save us from eternal judgment. That’s the good news: Jesus Christ paid our sin debt. Your need for “religion” died on the cross!

Paul explains this in Colossians 2:20-23.

20 Since you died with Christ ..., why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: 21 “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? 22 These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. 23 Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.

Got a sin problem? Don't try to solve it! You just need a Savior.