verycurious said:
Fourthly, I have yet to find a sufficient answer for my question what is religion and its purpose? and I remain verycurious
According to the Bible, "pure and undefiled religion....is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world."
Religion is more about what you do, not about what you believe. If the human race as a whole practiced the above definition of religion, then we'd have a lot fewer problems in the world.
My Christian faith is not "religion." I don't consider it such at all. It's a relationship. A relationship with a very personal God. Unfortunately, it's been wrongly labeled a "religion." Religion, as I said, involves
doing. According to the above definition, it involves
doing good things.
Relationship involves something else:
being. When you love someone, you simply enjoy
being with them. You love them for simply
being who they are, not because of what they
do. At least, that's the way it's supposed to be! Eventually, though, the natural outcome of loving someone, of being in relationship with someone, is that you want to
do things for them. Notice I said "want to." No one is forcing you to....
doing simply becomes a natural response to the state of
being in a relationship. It's the same way with God. Unfortunately, so many of us approach Him in the wrong way. We place the importance on the doing (the religion part) instead of on the being (the relationship part), and that makes the whole thing stale, legalistic, and totally unappealing. It's only when we realize that God desires a relationship with us, far above anything else, and that He loves us completely and unconditionally, independent of what we do, that we gain joy, life, and freedom. And gradually, as we get to know God better, and love Him more, we will naturally do all those good things that make up "religion." Jesus said that the greatest commandment was to love God with all one's heart, soul, mind and strength. That's it. If one does that, everything else falls into place.
"Religion" as most people know it today is a far cry from what God intended it to be. It's a man-made substitute.
