Why is it that the folks who seem most ready to hear about Christ can apparently walk themselves right up to the edge of asking for the answer, but then do an about-face and clam up ... or become downright hostile and ugly ... soon as the word "Jesus" is mentioned and starts echoing between their ears?
Why is that? Seriously.
I mean, we're not talking about the guy who's pulling down a seven-figure paycheck, who owns a hundred-foot yacht and who drives this year's model of a quarter-million dollar sports car, who's either blissfully married or happily single and yet still feels like something is missing from my life.
I'm talking about the man or woman who's reached their spiritual and emotional limit and is staring hard into the abyss of all-out despair ... whether from drug or alcohol dependence, a shattered marriage or a broken relationship, whether from legal problems or a plush career-carpet that abruptly got pulled out from under their feet: mention the name of Jesus, and their attention immediately turns away and returns to the quick fix ("My problem is that I just don't have what I want") ... the same sad solution they know best.
Is it because most people have already had at least some experience with or exposure to "religion," and don't want any part of it? Isn't "religion" all about building walls to keep sinners out ... and following a bunch of rules?
Why does "religion" have such a negative connotation ... one with all the reach and pull of a deep-ocean squid?
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How important is your "religion" anyway ... and does "your religion" really matter?
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Does it seem strange that whether in the entire NIV or the King James translation, the word "religion" is found just five times? In fact, in neither version, does Christ ever use the word "religion."
Not a single time.
In fact, the words "denomination" and "Convention" aren't found in either translation. At all.
Not even once.
Oh, and the word "Politics" isn't mentioned, either.
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Too often, believers fall back on the term "religion" as a convenient way of self-righteously purifying themselves, by demarcating the distinction between themselves and "all those wicked sinners." As if they're proud of "their religion" and its obvious infallibility ... just as they're proud and arrogant when it comes to sharing or discussing eternal life.
As if eternal life is something they either deserved (because "being saved" makes them feel special and above reproach), or as if salvation was God's reward ... righteously earned (by "following all the rules" and by mocking, looking down upon, and hating sinners), or as if their salvation should be viewed by others as a self-evident fact: Sure I'm saved, and that means I'm better than you and God says so.
The truth is that God didn't say any such thing, and the Christ revealed in scripture certainly didn't teach anything like the "religion," or the smugness, many "religious people" feel accustomed to wearing in church on Sunday mornings.
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So is "religion" really unimportant and irrelevant? No, not at all:
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
- James 1:27
