I’ve been hearing a lot of messages like “Don’t let religion keep you from God” or “Religion never answered anyone’s problems.” The list goes on and on. Christians who have discovered that Christianity is a relationship rather than a tradition or routine cry out against religion as defined as a set of do’s and don’ts as if the do’s and don’ts are a plague themselves.
It makes me mad.
A child does not have a concept of commitment or relationship. From birth it’s sole instinct is pure survival and pure selfish. How does this differ from when a person is ‘born again’ into the kingdom. Motives are the same – what he or she can get out of God. Just like parents who set the rules and regulations of the home for the child to abide by, whether they understand or agree with them or not, parents are often ridiculed and scoured for enforcing these rules. It takes MANY years of GROWING UP and maturing to comprehend and appreciate what our parents did for us as children. We all so often find ourselves saying the exact same phrases in the exact same tone as our parents – things we swore we’d never say to our own children. Never say never.
I grew up in the home with some very strict rules. I can’t even begin to imagine what kind of hardship and heartaches I was spared because I was so ‘different.’ I was never invited to parties during high school. How many times did I get passed by for an invite to a party where alcoholic beverages were present? Only God knows that number but I’m certain each and every time the temptation to drink or even drink and drive was bypassed. Would I have been mature enough to say no? I don’t know but God does and He spared me through the ‘rules and regulations’ that my parents set over our house.
Do we have and enforce rules at our home? Absolutely. Do our children know or understand why we say no? Absolutely not. Does that change my duties as a parent. Never. BECAUSE of my LOVE for them, I set rules in our home in order to TRAIN UP our children in the way they should go so they will never depart from it. They don’t understand why I said no, but it’s really irrelevant. When it’s appropriate, I explain and train but other times the answer is the answer period. One day, just like me, they’ll understand and appreciate what I’m doing and find themselves doing just the same.
It’s not Religion VS Christianity, it’s Religion is the Discipline to discover it. After all, to be a disciple of Christ is not just to be His friend, but it is to work and live for Him as His disciple. To be His disciple requires discipline, whether you’re mature enough to appreciate it and administer it or a babe that must be corrected by it who will also come to maturity as long as the parents do their duties.
Understand this: you are where you are in Christ BECAUSE of where you’ve been and what you’ve come through. Don’t shake your fist at religion as if it’s from the devil himself. Religion was the discipline that kept you when you were too immature to understand and too hardheaded to hear when you were finally old enough to understand. The Bible says not to despise the days of your youth – appreciate it and honor your father and mother for this is right in the eyes of God.
