December 23, 2025

 Happy Wednesday 

2 days until Christmas 

 Merry Christmas to you. I was just thinking yesterday about Religion. What is it? What does it mean; or how do we know a person is connected to God? Does the bible tell us. Yes. I took the answer off-line lol, but before we see what real religion is I want to ask some questions. If the answer is yes then that person has a relationship with or a connection to God. 

Bad example of religion. It is not on purpose but we can get caught up in drama without even knowing it. No one is perfect. It happens but it should not keep happening. 

1. You attend a church and drama take place. Instead of talking to each other the people talk about each other. Drama and twisted stories come out. They begin to say each other is jealous of each other. Then years later they choose to hang on to drama. No one chooses to do better. They just drag more new people in the drama. The new people or new recruits have nothing to do with the drama but instead of helping each other they add more to the drama until things are so far gone they will literally kill each other. Their hearts have become completely evil. 

2. You have lots of material things and everyone is jealous of you. You don't really bring people to Christ but you provoke people to chase things through God. They love your shoes more than your heart. They follow you only to gain silly things. 

3. You love gospel music and never listen to secular music 

none of these represents true religion!

This story and the other examples does not represent people who have a connection to God. I'm not going to be spooky and say they have evil spirits but we know something is off. Something is not right. Your relationship with God is pure when you do what James says. Being in church drama and fighting with a fellowship Christian or people you don't know shows you are far from God. Your religion is not pure. It may have some good in it but you mmixed it with bad. Pure means pure. We should be careful. The enemy entangles us easily. But you know God when ............(definition of true religion)

A person who has a connection with God or a relationship with God will do the opposite. It is not gospel music, not even church, these things are morally good and God tells us to do them but anyone can do them. How do we know you are connected to God.......let's see. 

 Bible defines religion as a system connecting humanity to God, but distinguishes between false religion (human-made rituals, traditions, self-effort) and true religion (practical love, care for the needy, moral purity, devotion to Christ). True religion, exemplified in James 1:27, involves caring for widows/orphans and staying unstained by the world, showing inner faith through outward, compassionate actions, not just outward ceremonies. 

I hope to get to that. This is what we strive for. If drama happens deal with it but don't linger. Don't become a killer. A mad 😡 man or crazy 🤪 lady. Just push towards real religion. Recognize when some things are not God sent. 

It is not killings, spreading lies, unforgiving, and things happen to us all but run from false religion and get the real thing. 

Have a beautiful day!