Religion the Verb

So I've been hired (I think, they can't pay me but I'm hired?) as campus minister at Altoona, PA. Woo! And I've been thinking about what I want to talk about during the year n'at. And I've decided to talk about Religion as a Verb.

Today many talk about how "I'm spiritual but not religious." Well religion really is no more than practicing your faith, or spirituality. And as James says, "Faith without works is dead" which I would translate in this case to "spirituality without works is dead" or even better put, "spirituality without religion is dead.

Many that hate religion will argue "Religion is the reason for the war in the Middle East, the Crusades, Spanish Inquisition," etc. etc. True. But all of those are not the religion that Christ has called us to.

During my time thinking about what to talk about and what to focus on for the year I've come to this conclusion.

We must understand GRACE in order to RELIGION properly.

What?

What I mean is this. James calls a religion that God views as pure and blameless as one that takes care of the widows and orphans. One that loves people and acts on that love. But we can't love people without God because God is love and anyone that loves has to know God. And if you know God, truly know God, you can't help but love him. (I don't mean fully know him, because your head will explode, but actually know him and have a relationship with him and grow in knowing him daily.) The greatest commandment is also to love people with all we have, but more importantly to love God with all we have. To live out our faith. To act like we're saved. To religion.

To believe in Christ, to die and come back to life with him, To trust in him is to have faith and by having faith we have salvation. To have salvation we need grace, because it is by grace we are saved. To receive grace we need faith. See Ephesians 2.8-9 and Romans 10. Those are the two off the top of my head I know there are more. By receiving grace we also receive Christ's righteousness as our own, giving us his perfection making us perfect in God's eyes. See Romans 8. Faith leads to grace, leads to salvation, leads to righteousness, leads to perfection, and we are to live as if we are saved, as if we have faith, as if we are righteous. Live the righteousness that Christ has given you. These are big truths, hard truths to understand, but they are true.

To live as if we are saved is to practice our faith. And we can only practice our faith perfectly if we understand grace. And understanding grace and living as if we have been given grace is to religion.

We must understand grace to religion properly.

I encourage you to live as if you are saved, to religion properly, to love those that God loves and act on it.