ChoicesSample

Will you choose relationship?

I am a typical first born. An overachiever, a rule follower, a fixer, a doer. I grew up in a traditional protestant church, and will be forever grateful for all I learned there. But, along with my natural bent towards rules, and my desire to be obedient, my understanding of spiritual things became very religious. In my efforts to become Christlike, I became a religious rule follower.

Religion sets standards that go beyond even what God asks of us. We do certain things with the hopeful expectation that those rituals will make us holy. Read my Bible today? Check. Prayed? Check. Worked at the homeless shelter and served at church this week? Check. The list of things we need to accomplish to become holy is exhausting. We are always going, always doing, and still never feeling like we have done enough. Eventually, we place on others the same expectation we have for ourselves.

It took me many years to realize that religion and relationship were opposites. As I learned more about grace and how much Jesus loves me, I realized He did not need me to perform for Him. He just wanted me to love Him, because He first loved me! So simple, so true, and so very freeing! I didn’t have to do anything to gain His love and grace. I simply had to be His. And in the be-ing, I don’t have to worry about the do-ing. Praying, reading my Bible, and serving happens because my heart wants to know Him. My desire is for Him, not the things I can do for him.

This realization began to change me from the inside out when all along, I’d been trying to behave a certain way so my heart would be holy. Self righteousness. What a convoluted way to reach God.

God gave us the gift of grace. His grace covers all our failings and imperfections. It’s not a gift to be trampled, but one to be treasured. We can never do anything to gain His love, because we are His adopted, chosen children.

Will we continue striving to reach Him? Or just be His?

Choose relationship over religion, so that you will find the freedom of living in His grace.