Before reading this, please know that this post is a copy of my own personal journal. Its a message that is not intended for any one person but for all. These thoughts I have written down that I think are good things to think about. Though I may fail at this at times, my goal here is to develop my listening skills with the intent to understand. Most people listen with the intent to reply.
The word "religious"
I often hear the phrase " I'm not religious, im just living a
Christian lifestyle." People
who say this phrase are often the same kind of people who will use the example
of a strict church or group of people that will kick someone out for drinking,
smoking or being seen doing worldly things. They claim that living the
Christian lifestyle is not about judging people who aren't perfect, but rather
encouraging people to do their best in battling those worldly desires so God
can bless us. They then go on to
say, "Christianity is not a religion, its the truth, its the way of
life."
They are correct in that as Christians, we aren't here to judge
people. It’s not our place to. We are here to encourage people to seek the
truth so they may be able to see and choose the journey that brings them to a
fulfilling life with God. However,
they are incorrect in using the words "I am not religious." I believe that before even using the
word “religious”, we need to know what it means, to us, to other people, and
the correct definition given in the dictionary.
In the online Miriam-Websters dictionary these are the definitions:
1: relating to or manifesting faithful devotion to an
acknowledged ultimate reality or deity religious
person> <religious
attitudes>
2: of,
relating to, or devoted to religious beliefs or observances religious
order
3:
scrupulously and conscientiously faithful
In my own words,
being religious is synonymous with being faithfully devoted to something.
You can therefore be
religious because of your faithfulness to your spouse, devotion to consistently
journaling and reading scripture or even unceasing prayer. According to these
definitions every Christian should be religious, they are in fact called to be
faithful to the lord and devoted to his kingdom are they not? You can even be religious because you
faithfully wait until every sunday just so you can watch the new episode of the
Walking Dead or from this month, the Game of Thrones season 3.
When I hear,
"It's not a religion, its a relationship, lifestyle….etc." What I believe my good willing Christian
friends really mean is "I'm not legalistic." After all, it is the Law that condemns
us but Jesus who sets us free.
Often I hear stories
about many people who don't know much about Christianity stepping in to a
church or running into a group of people praying somewhere like a public place,
lets say McDonalds or Starbucks, and they think “those guys are religious,
those guys are weird.”
But many of my
protestant brothers will do the same thing when they think about the Orthodox
or Catholic Churches. They hear about a church that has icons, tons of traditions
dating back hundreds of years, priests that wear robes, and no rock band and
think, “that's weird. I don't understand that.”
The problem here
isn't that it’s weird. It’s that we are failing to look at each other with the
intent to understand. We just dismiss it as foreign and go on our merry
way. We want the world to look at
us and see the light of God, but many dismiss us as a bunch of crazies. But are we not doing the same thing
when we look at our brothers of the other major branches of Christianity? We
don't even try to understand where the traditions came from.. we dismiss it as
religious and go on our way.
My call to my
brothers and sisters who read this is to:
-Please do your
research on certain terminology before you use it in conversation because it may mean something different to someone else.
-also, please open
your eyes and realize that no matter what denomination you or anyone else is,
Christians still have a lot to learn from each other no matter how different
they look.
Happy Easter! Sorry that im writing this at 2am, April 1st Japan time. -_- and i don't have pictures of cute bunnies T_T.