Religion or Relationship?

“No more religion for me, I want a relationship!”  I’ve seen a post to that effect on several occasions lately on Facebook, posted by different people.

I get it.  The poster (one who posts, not the thing on the wall) is tired of unfulfilling rules and regulations and wants a two-way street and conversation with their Creator.  I firmly believe that’s what God wants with us, too.

I just don’t like the saying because, of the two words, which one is advocated for all believers in Scripture?  I’ll give you a hint: it’s not “relationship”.*

When we think of “religion”, though, what do we think of?  Rules and regulation.  Forms that are more important than the function they were (supposedly) instituted to serve.  Pomp and circumstance signifying nothing (if I may mangle the Bard).

How does the Bible describe religion?  “If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless.  Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”  (James 1:26-27 English Standard Version)

Two things strike me right off.  First, God doesn’t think any more highly of useless religions than we do.  People who tell themselves—and anyone else—that they are religious but still act and talk like the unsaved have a worthless religion.

Second, there is a religion God likes, and advocates: taking care of people who need taking care of and keeping ourselves pure.

Let me take that inside-out for a moment and stress “keeping ourselves pure.”  One of the bad connotations that comes to mind when thinking of “religion” in a negative light is the guy in the cowl (or Armani suit, clothing intended to indicate his authority and superiority) shouting out “Thou shalt not!!”  In other words, someone else telling us how to live.  James—writing, as I firmly believe, with the authority of the Holy Spirit—wants us to monitor ourselves.

Now, back to the first part of that directive: taking care of orphans and widows.  Most of our churches (another word I don’t like) are known, first of all, for size and worship style.  Sometimes for doctrine.  These all have their place and it’s stupid to claim we aren’t swayed by them, but wouldn’t it be great to be known first and foremost as an assembly or individual who takes care of the needy?  “2^nd Church?  Yeah, I’ve heard of them.  Aren’t they the one that has the clothes drive for kids?”

Unfortunately, we’ve let the world co-opt the word “religion”.  We’re visiting with someone and they say, “You’re pretty religious, aren’t you?”  We mumble and hem and haw because we’re pretty sure they just insulted us.  Or we’re thinking that what they’re thinking of is “religion” defined by rules and regulations and meaningless things.  Wouldn’t it be great if someone said, “You’re pretty religious” because they saw us building a handicapped ramp on a widow’s house or taking her to her doctor’s appointment?

I want a relationship with God.  I pursue one every day in prayer and in Bible study, but having read the Bible I realize that God, like us, telegraphs how he wants to be related to.  It took me a while to learn that as a husband but I eventually learned that the way my wife wanted to be loved was not always intuitive to me.  I had to finally ask her what she wanted, what I could do to show her that I loved her?

David realized this—to his own surprise—that God didn’t want sacrifices.  “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire—but my ears you have opened—burnt offerings and sin offerings  you did not require. Then I said, ‘Here I am, I have come—it is written about me in the scroll. I desire to do your will, my God; your law is within my heart.’”  (Psalm 40:6-8 New International Version)

God seeks a relationship with us and one of the primary ways he wants us to show him love is by showing love to other people—especially those who are downtrodden.  It’s why he spends so much of his word in telling us how to treat other people.  In other words, he doesn’t want us to reject religion, he wants us to find it!  But not the world’s definition of religion, his!

The next time someone tells me they want a relationship instead of religion, I think I’ll tell them I want both.  I want a relationship built on the religion God is looking for and I want a religion that strengthens my relationship to my God.

One without the other is useless.

* OK, if you went and looked up “relationship” in your concordance, you found that it shows up 6 times in the NIV.  But look at those 6.  4 of them refer to relationships with other people.  One speaks of the relationship between Jesus and God and one indicates that Solomon’s life was such that it indicated a relationship existed between him and God.