Have you ever been to a fair or a carnival where people running booths were screaming at you, ‘Step right up…’ trying to convince you to come and try their game or product? Maybe you even got reeled in and tried a game and won some cheap Kewpie doll and walked away proud of your accomplishment. Sometimes I think that is the way it is with religion. People from various religions are just trying to convince you that their religion is best. Jesus Christ never came to sell people on another religion. Jesus was not the founder of Christianity as a religion. Jesus was about transformation and relationship. In fact, I would go as far as to say Jesus was against religion. The Pharisees were the predominant religious leaders among the Jews. Read Matthew 23 for what he had to say about them. I hope you click on that link and read that whole chapter, it is too long to reprint in this article, but it is scathing to say the least. Here are a few highlights:
“The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat: All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not. For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.” Matthew 23:2-4.
“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long prayer: therefore, ye shall receive the greater damnation. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.” Matthew 23:14-15
“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.” Matthew 23:25
“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.” Matthew 23:27-28
Jesus wasn’t about religion, he was about relationship.
Jesus came to restore the broken relationship humans had with the Creator God, whom he called Father. He even used a more intimate term. The term “Abba Father” appears in the Bible in several places, notably in Mark 14:36, where Jesus addresses God as “Abba, Father” during prayer, and in Romans 8:15 and Galatians 4:6, which emphasize the intimate relationship believers have with God as His children. These verses highlight the loving and personal nature of God as a father.
The biggest thing left out of most religions is transformation. Religion is about positive thinking and works in the hope that you will be a better person if you do this or that. And I am afraid most Christians, when they tell others about Christ, trying to convert them to Christianity, approach it as if they are trying to convince you that their religion is better than that religion. Jesus got to the heart of the matter when he met Nicodemus in John chapter 3 when he said, “You must be born again”. Don’t be confused like Nicodemus was, thinking you have to go back into your mother’s womb, no this statement is about transformation, supernatural transformation.
Romans 12:1-2
I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
Following Christ is not about self-improvement. In fact, he is very plain that it is about crucifying the self as in our old nature, not our physical bodies. He is talking about a change that only he can give.
Matthew 16:24
Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.
Mark 8:34
And He summoned the crowd with His disciples, and said to them, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.
Luke 9:23
If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.
Romans 6:6
Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin;
Galatians 5:24
Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
Ephesians 4:22
Lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit,
When you truly encounter Christ by his Holy Spirit, something shifts.
You may not be able to explain it, but it is so real that you will never be the same. It is an undeniable transformation. It isn’t about just joining a church or saying a so-called ‘sinner’s prayer’. It is an encounter with your old self and an introduction to your new self. It changes you from the inside out. That doesn’t mean you will not be tempted to go back to your old ways; in fact, it sets up a struggle within that you didn’t have before. Before Christ, you lived any way you wanted to live, which was mostly about instant gratification. After a true encounter with Christ, you are introduced to who you were truly meant to be. Many things that were acceptable to you now are not. You are able to see for the first time what is sinful. Your eyes are opened and you see things in a whole different way. That word for transformed in Romans 12 in the original Greek is describing a metamorphosis that takes place, like a caterpillar being changed into a butterfly. Your mind shifts and suddenly what was acceptable to you before is brought out into the light and you see it for what it really is and these things begin to lose their grip. Your very desires change. You find yourself desiring more Godly things rather than what you desired before.
Paul illustrates how your two natures contrast in Galatians 5 as he contrasts the works of the flesh with the fruit of the Spirit. You now have conviction of what is right and wrong. The Holy Spirit resides in you, not to shame you but to teach you. Your eyes are suddenly opened to the possibilities and the reality that it is possible to lead a Godly life. Sure, you will make mistakes along the way, but now you have a guide. You begin thinking differently. You treat yourself and others differently. You have a desire to learn more about this new way that the Holy Spirit is drawing you into. You are more honest with yourself and more sensitive to what is wrong and what is right. Self-help books can’t do this. This is a change of heart. This is a 180-degree turnaround. This is a look in a mirror at yourself that goes down to the very soul and you say to yourself, ‘Why didn’t I see that before?’ And yet at the same time, it is not a condemnation, it is a drawing you to himself and walking beside you to show you the way. He doesn’t just guide you, he becomes our guide. In other words, he doesn’t just give us advice, he shows us the way, he walks with us, saying ‘This is the way, walk ye in it’ (Isaiah 30:21)
Once you experience his presence, you want more of him and what he has to offer.
When this transformation takes place, the things you are hungry for change. Once you experience his presence, you want more of him and what he has to offer. You realize for the first time that those things of the world and your previous life were just chains holding you back. He breaks those chains and you walk out of a jail cell you didn’t even know you were in and you feel the warmth of sunlight that nourishes a part of you that you didn’t even know before. And somehow you know, ‘This is real’. This is not just some fading emotion. This is not just crying off something and feeling better for a while, then going back to your old ways. You now have a new desire and direction in your life that just makes sense. You become like the Psalmist who wrote in Psalms 42:1 as he expresses a deep longing for God, comparing the soul’s thirst for Him to a deer panting for water. It reflects feelings of despair and a desire to reconnect with God’s presence, emphasizing hope and faith despite struggles. You feel it in your bones, deep down. You find yourself praying not just as a duty but because you want to get to know this God better who has transformed your soul. The world, people and the devil will try to tempt you with distractions and entertainment, but somehow those things just don’t satisfy you like they used to.
This transformation also makes you bolder. You have experienced something you want to share with others and you speak with a conviction that something real has happened to you. Your friends even notice you are different. There are things that were right to you (sin) before and now they are wrong. And the things of God, are now right. You understand scriptures better and you find yourself searching the scriptures for guidance. You will also eventually see supernatural gifts being worked by you, like counseling others beyond your ability, praying for the sick to be healed and praying for others to be ‘saved’. You find yourself passionate about life and a desire to see others be free.
As you seek his way, you find that the Holy Spirit is leading you. He guides you into a deeper relationship with him. He gives you understanding beyond your own understanding. He doesn’t just tell you what to do, he walks with you.
He empowers you. You become a vessel of God’s love capable of things you were not capable of before. You become sensitive to people’s needs and have a desire to help them that perhaps you didn’t even care about or see before. It is no longer just about you. A purpose begins to stir within you that you didn’t have before. You care about people and the things of God. Your purpose may not be as big as pastoring a church; it might be, but it may be as simple as ministering to someone in need. You may find yourself caring about someone or something you didn’t care about before. Matthew 6:33 states, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” This verse isn’t about giving up everything for church life; it is about seeing things deeper. It is about seeing things through God’s eyes and perspective and prioritizing accordingly.
He wants to write his laws on your heart (Hebrews 10:16-26), where it counts not on tablets of stone. When his laws are written on your heart, you no longer have to consult a list to check on whether you screwed up today. No, he gives you the desires you are supposed to have, a desire to live right and over time, as you follow him, it becomes more and more natural to live that way.
Religion demands you conform. A true relationship with Christ is about being transformed. Don’t be fooled by religion and self-help books, let him transform you from the inside out. He can do what no one or nothing else can do.
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