Religion

"It is a profound irony that the Son of God visited this planet and one of the chief complaints against him was that he was not religious enough."
-Rebecca Pippert in Out of the Salt Shaker & into the World

I love this quote, and the book is one of my favorites about sharing faith, but it scares me. It scares me that many institutions of faith, the Church, and "Godly" people are a lot of times too religious for God. What does that say?? Anyone who takes the time to really look into the life of Jesus will see that this was the reason people wrote him off. He wasn't good enough for their "religion". He ruffled their feathers just a little too much. Jesus wasn't religious. He had faith and conviction, but could never fit into the mold of the religious establishment of the day. Do we continually put ourselves at odds with what Jesus actually taught? If Jesus came today, would we be more interested in our own ideas of what he should say than what he would really say? A well known pastor of a church in California, Francis Chan, has said: "If Jesus came and started a church near mine, I would probably have more members." I love his honesty, because it speaks to a greater desire in all of us to pursue our own agenda and glory. I bet if we all looked deep into our views of faith, we would realize that we always feel the pressure to be more "religious" than God calls us to be. He calls us to be righteous and holy, but in that is the true calling to be REAL.