Religion vs. my Jesus…….

// January 11th, 2012 // Loux Family News

I’m writing a book and would love your prayers!  I have someone collaborating with me on the project. Her name is Bette. She is wonderful, amazing, funny, deep  and very “real.” It was refreshing to hear her heart and I love it that we’re on the same page with the things that definitely matter the most!

Bette wanted to know what I would like to accomplish through my book?  My answer was this.  ”People are sick of religion. They are broken and desperately hurting and some of them are at the end of their rope. They want to know why we, as Christians, are offering Jesus to them as the answer? I want to give them a million and one reasons (through my story) of why Jesus is the answer and yet I want to be gut level honest and real with them.  Jesus can’t be put in a box. Bette and I discussed the fact that He does not always “feel” safe. He doesn’t particularly feel comfortable all the time….and He is not always predictable! I lost my father (he was only 57), my son (at 2 and 1/2) and my husband (at 37). I still don’t have all the answers to the “why’s, but I have a story to tell of God’s grace that has not only carried me but given an amazing hope for mine and my children’s future! I want to share that hope with you.

Now on to the subject of Religion vs. my Jesus….I hurt for those who are bound by religion and for those who feel they have to be religious for God to love them. I found that in reading the Bible, Jesus reserved his harshest words for religious leaders. Jesus reprimanded them for falling short of the standards of God’s Kingdom.  Jesus pronounced “woes” on religious leaders like the chief priests, the scribes, the Pharisees and Sadducees. While he labeled these religious leaders as blind guides and hypocrites, he mingled with tax collectors, prostitutes and others that he considered the very worst of sinners.  I love that!!

Jesus was tough on religious people because he was NOT one of them.  Jesus placed Himself and His new way of relating to God far beyond the reach of “religion!” Religion kills! Religion likes to wage war. Religion traffics in power plays, discriminates and promotes slavery.  Organized religion comes up with hoops that we are told we have to jump through for God to love us…produces rules, rules and more rules about how we should dress, who we should get to know, where we should sit to be seen and known by the “who’s who” crowd.

I’ve found that my beautiful Jesus is a very glaring contrast to everything religion stands for. Amazing isn’t it that the Christian religion has itself become as Anti-Christ as any man made system can be?  Religion is a barrier and a stumbling block in getting to know Jesus. Jesus came not only to save us and to set us free from our sin, He came to break the chains of bondage that religion has held over our lives.

I’d like to share a portion of Bette’s email to me.

“The Christian walk is one of mystery, of balance, of patience. It is not one of manipulating God to do as you wish, or of “ten ways to transform your husband,” “Nine ways to deepen your walk with God.” My walk with God (now more than 37 years) has been both rich, and terrifying. It has been at times, lonely, confusing, and difficult. I’ve had health issues, depression, and marriage troubles (big ones), and yet, I can say with confidence that I have come to know how much I don’t know about God. And yet I follow him.

I don’t really believe that being saved will rescue you from all your deepest difficulties. In fact, it seems to me that being saved most often drops you over the edge — into territory where the difficulties aren’t “out there” but rather in your face — or worse, in your soul.

I am awed by the passage in Exodus where God leads his children down a blind alley. In the text, it says clearly that he led them to that place where the Red Sea was in front of them and their enemies were behind them. It was intentional. He did it. It must have been terrifying — both in the outward (what if they get us?) but also in the inner man (what kind of God have we decided to follow? Can he be trusted? If he led us here on purpose, what ELSE will he do to us?)

We Christians tend to look at God as some benevolent old man, that we can understand, control, explain, and perhaps worst of all, write about and sell to the masses.

I’m a doubter (by nature) in that I doubt people’s explanations for God. I stick to the text (Bible), but I don’t have much faith in charts, and liturgical explanations. But at the same time, I’m a server in my deepest heart. The Lion of Judah must be respected, obeyed, whether we understand or not. He wants us to know him, as much as we are able in this life. As much as an ant can know the man who builds his house on his nest, perhaps. But we will never ever completely explain him, or understand him. Nor, will we ever direct him.

He is God, after all. All we can do is to try to love him back.”

Thanks Bette, for letting me share this portion of your email! I love how real and honest you are!

God is beautiful and limitless! It will take all of eternity to continue to get to know the beauty and majesty of who He is. His love for us is outrageous…seriously outrageous!

You are precious and priceless to Jesus, no matter where you’re at. He loves you and wants you to get to know the fullness of His amazing love for you…a love that drove him to the cross to set you free. It would be pride for you to think that any sin you’ve committed is too great to be forgiven. There is no sin too great that He is not there waiting for you, to bring you freedom but most of all to say, “I love you.  Let’s run this race and finish it together!”

Much life and hope for you today, through Jesus’ most committed love for you!