Religion vs Relationship

I’m new at blogging so I ask your patience and forgiveness if I go too fast or leave things out in the name of expediency. I received a comment on my last post which was a big help to me. I had written that I “gave my life” to Christ. I do not retract that statement, but I want to enlarge the concept for those who may have been confused by it. The comment gave Scriptures showing that God draws us. My purpose in my statement only addressed the fact that once God draws you, something is required for Salvation to occur. We must always look at the whole of Scripture

John 10:9 (AMP)
I am the Door; anyone who enters in through Me will be saved (will live). He will come in and he will go out [freely], and will find pasture.

In the above Scripture, a person of His own free will enters Salvation through Christ by realizing that only Christ’s Sacrifice can save. Our works are useless. While good deeds are helpful, they cannot be used as a bargaining chip into heaven. God is not for sale

Acts 2:21 (AMP)
And it shall be that whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord [invoking, adoring, and worshiping the Lord—Christ] shall be saved.

This one from Acts is harder because it requires that you stop worshiping yourself and other temporal things and follow Christ, trusting in Him alone.

2 Peter 3:9 (AMP)
The Lord does not delay and is not tardy or slow about what He promises, according to some people’s conception of slowness, but He is long-suffering (extraordinarily patient) toward you, not desiring that any should perish, but that all should turn to repentance.

This is where we see that those who are being “drawn” to God are fortunate that God will never give up on them. Having said that I will continue my Testimony by starting at the beginning.

I was raised in a church denomination that requires ritual and obedience to the rules. Christ’s Death and Resurrection was not enough for them and they had men who were “authorities” in these rituals who suppressed and lorded it over the laity or church members. I grew up believing every word they said. As I grew older, however, I saw that I had no assurance of heaven and would have to pay for my sins even after death. Through it all, I am grateful to say, that God never abandoned me. He was drawing me all along. I know this for a fact, because I never abandoned Him. I knew that my “religion” was faulty and that my “ism” (religion) was created by the mind of man in order to control people, I wasn’t sure what was right, but I knew that God existed and that He loved me.

He didn’t let me down. I had a friend who came out of a different “ism” than I, with a different sort of rule book, but while in college, she had heard the truth through Campus Crusade for Christ. She literally came into my place of work…a Taco joint, and shared the true Gospel of Jesus Christ…that His Death and Resurrection was the perfect sacrifice for my sins and that He wanted me to surrender my old life; to crucify it daily and follow His lead. That is what it means to make Jesus Lord of your Life. You can’t both be on the throne of your heart…you must vacate it willingly. You see, that is why I said in the last blogpost that God does not send people to hell…they by their own choice not to submit will send themselves.

When my friend shared the truth with me, it was if a shaft of light hit me right on the head and I repented and surrendered myself to Christ right there amid the tacos and burritos.

Romans 6:3-14 (AMP)
Are you ignorant of the fact that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?
We were buried therefore with Him by the baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious [power] of the Father, so we too might [habitually] live and behave in newness of life.
For if we have become one with Him by sharing a death like His, we shall also be [one with Him in sharing] His resurrection [by a new life lived for God].
We know that our old (unrenewed) self was nailed to the cross with Him in order that [our] body [which is the instrument] of sin might be made ineffective and inactive for evil, that we might no longer be the slaves of sin.
For when a man dies, he is freed (loosed, delivered) from [the power of] sin [among men].
Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him,
Because we know that Christ (the Anointed One), being once raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has power over Him.
For by the death He died, He died to sin [ending His relation to it] once for all; and the life that He lives, He is living to God [in unbroken fellowship with Him].
Even so consider yourselves also dead to sin and your relation to it broken, but alive to God [living in unbroken fellowship with Him] in Christ Jesus.
Let not sin therefore rule as king in your mortal (short-lived, perishable) bodies, to make you yield to its cravings and be subject to its lusts and evil passions.
Do not continue offering or yielding your bodily members [and faculties] to sin as instruments (tools) of wickedness. But offer and yield yourselves to God as though you have been raised from the dead to [perpetual] life, and your bodily members [and faculties] to God, presenting them as implements of righteousness.
For sin shall not [any longer] exert dominion over you, since now you are not under Law [as slaves], but under grace [as subjects of God’s favor and mercy].

I was baptized that weekend and became a new creature in Christ I left all the “isms” and “ists” behind because those tags indicate that men have messed with God’s Word in order to enslave. If you read the Gospels, you will see that Christ was not happy with the Pharisees that had created over 600 “extra” laws to control people. He had much to say to them about that. His way is far better…

Corinthians 5:17 (AMP)
Therefore if any person is [ingrafted] in Christ (the Messiah) he is a new creation (a new creature altogether); the old [previous moral and spiritual condition] has passed away. Behold, the fresh and new has come!

The hard part is learning how to consistently live that way. My book tries to answer these questions, but I’ll be happy to answer them here. When a Christian gets baptized, there ultimate questions is…what happens next. God’s Word will tell you…do not listen to the voice of men who add to God’s Word.

These Scriptures are taken from the Amplified Bible which I find most helpful as the brackets and parenthesis contain the true meaning of the Greek and so expand our understanding Scripture