OF GOD AND ME

      Knowing God is not a religious experience.  God is not in religion and religion is not in God. 
     We live in a world of confusion and the world has us confused about God; therefore, people have mixed God with religion and religion with God, making it easy to believe that the two are one.  We can then say that because a person is religious he knows God, or if he speaks of God then he must be religious.
     The blogs I write are out of my own experience.  For you see I was a religious person for 46 years.
      As a child, I was taken to church where I was taught when to sit, when to stand, when to pray, and when to say "Amen".  I was taught how to dress appropriately for the "house of the Lord".  In time, I learned how to do these behaviors all by myself!  I was also taught how to do "daily Bible readings", how to memorize Bible verses, and then I learned how to study the Bible all by myself.  For me, all of these behaviors were normal.  And I could do them without God!  When I became an adult, I began to compare myself with others:  in my clothing standard, in my devotion to God, and in my Bible knowledge.  I also compared myself to people who did not go to church as well as to people who went to churches that were different than mine, and even with people in my own congregation.  For if anybody knew God it was me!
     Early on an April morning in 1995, however, something happened.  A still, small voice spoke to me and said, "You have never confessed to God that you are a sinner and you have never received Christ as your Savior."  The voice was not heard with my physical ears, but rather internally.  And in that moment of time I recognized that I did not know God.  That is when I bowed on my knees, confessed to God that I was a sinner, and I invited Christ into my heart to save my from my sins.  He did.  And I felt an internal peace that I had never known before.  Afterwards, I did not run across the moutains or through the streets, and I did not jump across pews, for I was not in church on that day.  This was truly a quiet and humbling experience, not something for me to brag about, for it wasn't me that saved me, it was the Christ who was crucified in Jerusalem for my sin and for the sin of the world.
     The past seventeen years have been delightful.  Have all my ways pleased Him?  No.  Have I been perfect?  Never.  Do I make mistakes?  Every day.  Have I been a hypocrite at times?  Certainly.  For in all of my ways that are unpleasing to Him, I confess my wrongs, He forgives me, and I begin anew.
     To read my story and hear me say "God spoke to me" sounds like a person who has either lost his mind, drunk, or "tripping out" on something.  That was not the case.  What I am sharing with you is the fact that God was not interested in my religion; He is interested in my heart and with me as a person.
     So as I write to you about God and about religion, I now know the difference; for it is God who showed me this, not something I learned all by myself.  For God is not interested in man's multitudes of religions and He is not interested in people being religious.  What God is interested in is people seeing His Son, which is the sum total of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Not only did Christ save my soul, but He also saved me out of my bondage to religion.
     God has plans for us that will be truly wonderful.  You are invited to read the Word of God for yourself and know what a wonderful Lord we have!
               Be still and know that I am God:  (Psalm 46:10)