A PAIR OF MAGPIES

   The Bible is about God and Christ and not about religion.
   God, in fact, does not and has never had a religion.
   The writers of the Bible wrote about God and Christ and not about religion.
   When Jesus came to earth, He did not arrive here to launch a new religion.
   Beginning in Jerusalem and to the uttermost parts of the world, the apostles and disciples went forth proclaiming the Good News of Christ and not the views of the newest religion on the block.
   Religion is man's  idea, not God's; therefore, religion is all about man:  his ideas, his views, and the plans that he writes and proclaims in his own books and out of his own imagination, thereby making religion an imaginary system of man's beliefs, which is enough to produce mental disorders in those that bend their knees to imaginary images made by human hands.
   Obviously, religion is a substitute station:  a place to divert the minds of people from knowing God in an environment that man creates to look holy, as well as a place where even men  can appear to look holy---wearing the garments  to play their parts in the program, on a stage, and in front of a paying audience.  After all, the stuff they have to offer is not free, and they must also be paid for their work in their devoted duty of sacrificial service to their god, or gods, or goddesses.  If you like what you see, clap your hands:  then open your wallet.

"See you next week in a brand new show!"

  
   Isn't religion more like an orchestrated program where the script never changes and where the voices sound like a pair of magpies stuck in tree?
   After all, when was the last time anything new came out of religion?
   After all, when was the last time anything new came out of Rome?  Or Paris?  Or New York City?
   When was the last time, in fact, when something new came out of the cathedral on Main Street, from the chapel on the corner, or from the little brown church in the vale?
   About the only thing new we hear these days arrives from the world of politics, movies, music, and sports, while conspiracy theories will raise more eyebrows than a bucket of jalapeno peppers.
   Without something different, something new, we are living in the past:  today is the same as yesterday and tomorrow will be the same as today.
    How, then, can people have hope in the future when they are living in the past in yesterday's news?
         "Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise:  When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.  Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily.  But as he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, 'Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife:  for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.  And she shall bring for a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS:  and he shall save his people from their sins'."  (Matthew 1: 18-21)
   The lives of Joseph and Mary suddenly changed in the heartbeat of a child, and every day they lived, from that day forward, was in the future because their future was in the baby, and their eyes were forever on Him.
       "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life."  (John 3: 16)