Are you a very religious person?
Do you love your religion?
All the practices, all the feasts, everything that you have to do, these outward things, do you love it?
Think about this and be honest with yourself.
Now, let me ask you another question.
Do you really love God, or do you love religion?
Do you love God with your whole heart, with your whole soul, and with your whole mind,
everything that you are?
Do you love Him fully?
This is one of the most important questions that you can ask yourself,
and it is one of the questions that Jesus asked one of His disciples,
not once, not twice, but three times.
He asked Simon Peter in John 21:15, ”When they had eaten breakfast, Jesus asked Simon Peter,
‘Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?
'Yes, Lord,' he said to Him, 'You know that I love You.'
'Feed My lambs,’ He told him.
A second time He asked him, 'Simon, son of John, do you love Me?'
'Yes, Lord,' he said to Him, ‘You know that I love You.’
‘Shepherd My sheep,’ He told him. He asked him a third time, ‘Simon, son of John, do you love Me?’
Peter was grieved that He asked him the third time, 'Do you love Me?'
He said, 'Lord, You know everything; You know that I love You.'
'Feed My sheep,' Jesus said."
You see, Jesus asked Peter three times because it would be the most important question
that Peter would answer in his entire life.
And it is the most important question that you should ask yourself.
Not that you love religion, but do you love Jesus?
Because you see, there are thousands of people in the world, and they say, 'I am religious,'
and 'I try to do everything right.'
All these outward things, like going to church and read their Bible, praying.
They try to do everything right, but they miss the one thing that really matters.
They miss the whole point of it all.
God, Himself, they don't know Him. They don't have a relationship with Him, just like the Pharisees.
Jesus says in Matthew. "Hypocrites, Isaiah prophesied correctly about you when he said:
'This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me.
They worship Me in vain, teaching as doctrines human commands.
You know the people who Jesus struggled with the most here on earth were the religious people.
Very religious on their fleshly nature but spiritually dead.
They didn't know God.
They didn't have a relationship with Him.
They were the hardest to deal with because they always thought that they were right. Very righteous.
I am more religious than those people. Full of fleshly pride.
Paul Washer said, "A lot of people think that Christianity is you doing all the righteous things
you hate and avoiding all the wicked things you love in order to go to heaven.
No, that's a lost man with religion.
A Christian is a person whose heart has been changed. They have new affections."
You see, a real Christian does not just obey God's laws out of fear for hell,
but out of joy because of their love for Him.
Jesus says in John 14:15, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.”
And Proverbs 8:17 says, “I love those who love Me, and those who search for Me find Me.”
Do you see how amazing this is?
That God almighty wants a personal relationship with you,
but you can't have a personal relationship with God if you're not spiritually reborn.
Jesus says in John 3:3, '“I assure you: Unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."
"But how can anyone be born when he is old?", Nicodemus asked Him.
"Can he enter his mother's womb a second time and reborn?"
Jesus answered, "I assure you:
Unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh and whatever is born of the Spirit is Spirit.
Do not be amazed that I told you that you must be born again."'
You see, man-made religion cannot worship God.
All the outward stuff, practices, all these religious things that people do,
means absolutely nothing if they are spiritually dead.
Even your best deeds, even your most righteous deeds, are like filthy rags to God who is Holy.
Isaiah 64:6 says, “For we all have become like one who is [ceremonially] unclean [like a leper],
and all our deeds of righteousness are like filthy rags.”
You need to understand that the religious deeds that you do on your soul level,
on your own fleshly nature, when you do those religious deeds,
it means nothing, and it cannot save you.
Only God can save you. Only when you accept Him as your Lord and Savior,
and that He died on the cross for your sins.
All those sins, the punishment that you should have received,
He took it all upon Himself, and He died in your place.
And if you accept it, He will open your spiritual eyes and He will give you his Spirit,
the Holy Spirit will come and live inside of you, and you will become a new creation.
He promises in Ezekiel 36:26, “I will give you a new heart, and put a new Spirit within you;
I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh."
Then when this miracle happens, and God makes you alive who were spiritually dead,
when He gives you new spiritual life, you are reborn, a new creation.
2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation,
the old has passed away; and see, the new has come!”
This is what it means to be a real Christian.
You now live for Christ. Christ- Christian, Christian –Christ.
You follow and live for Him.
Not dead religious, man-made religious stuff.
No, you follow Christ.
I've heard this quote before, not sure where I heard it,
but it says, ‘Religion is a person in church thinking about fishing,
a relationship is a guy out fishing thinking about God.’
Let me ask you again. Do you really love God?
Do you really love Him with your whole heart, soul, and mind, everything that you are?
Do you love Him, or do you love what He can give you?
Or do you love religion? Do you love Him for who He is, who He revealed to us in Scripture?
Or do you love your own idea about who God is for you?
You see, you can only truly worship God if you do it in truth and in the Spirit.
Remember, John 4:24 says, “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in Spirit and truth.”
Talking about truth, let me be very direct and very honest,
because in a lot of churches today, you can't hear 100% truth anymore.
Because they're too scared to preach the truth in the world that we live in today,
and people have itching ears, so they just want to hear what they want to hear...
But only truth changes people. And I'm not going to say this because I'm a 'hell and brimstone preacher'
I'm saying this because I love you, and I don't want it to happen to you one day.
There will be a lot of religious Christians that will end up in hell one day
because they think that they are Christians but they are not because they don't really love God.
Jesus says in Matthew 7:21, '“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’
will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.
On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn't we prophesy in Your name,
drive out demons in Your name, and do many miracles in Your name?'
Then I will announce to them, ‘I never knew you, depart from Me, you lawbreakers!"'
There are a lot of religious people out there, who try desperately with their deeds to save themselves,
but you can't save yourself because only God can save you.
It is only by grace through faith that you can be saved.
Ephesians 2:8- 9 says, “For you are saved by grace through faith, and that is not from yourselves;
it is God's gift-- not from works, so that no one can boast.”
Then there is a group who says, ‘Okay, if I am saved by grace all my sins have been forgiven,
then I can just continue to live in sin,
enjoy myself and I can still go to heaven because God already forgave me, right?’
Don't twist Scripture to fit in with your sinful, fleshly nature.
That's not what Scripture says, but it says that if your faith is real,
you will automatically have good deeds if you are a reborn Christian.
James 2:14 says, “What good is it, my brothers and sisters,
if someone claims to have faith but does not have works? Can such faith save him?
if a brother or sister is without clothes and lacks daily food and one of you says to them,
‘Go in peace, stay warm, and be well fed,’
but you don't give them what the body needs, what good is it?
In the same way, faith, if it does not have works, is dead by itself.
So if your faith does not produce good works, then your faith is false.
You are Spiritually dead. You are not a real Christian.
Let me ask you again. Do you really love God?
Are you a reborn Christian? Are you a child of God?
John 1:12 says, “But to all who did receive Him,
He gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in His name.”
You know there are many religious people who add things to the Bible because they try to be more
righteous, but if you are a child of God, you only follow Him, His Word, and His Word alone.
I hate man-made religion.
Certain groups out there, who always add rules, and things to the Bible,
but inwardly, they are Spiritually dead.
That religion is worthless.
Christianity is a religion, but it is not a man-made religion.
It is God made because God is the author of the Bible, and He brought freedom, truth, and life.
Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, according to John 14:6.
But saying that I choose Jesus over religion does not mean it gives us the right to go ahead and just live in sin.
Following Jesus means to obey His law, His Word.
Our goal is to be more like Jesus. We cannot just throw repentance and sanctification just away.
We can't throw the whole Bible away. Jesus is the Word of God.
Choosing Jesus means to fully understand what Christianity is really all about.
To fully understand why
He came to die for us on the cross, and what did it mean when He said that He came to fulfill the law.
What does all of this actually mean?
There are a lot of Christians out there that actually know absolutely nothing about what Jesus
really came to do here on earth.
It's easy to say, ‘Oh, He came to die for our sins.’ But what does it mean?
You know, when you choose religion over God, you can become very prideful,
very judgmental, very self-righteous, very mean, very loveless.
I've heard this from so many people out there that I talked to.
They were pushed away from Christianity, from God, because of their very religious, strict parents.
Instead of bringing love and understanding why we have to obey the law,
they just brought rules all the time and added rules that the Bible does not even say.
God wants your love.
If you have religion without really loving God,
If you have religion but you're spiritually dead, it means nothing.
God says in Hosea 6:6, “For I desire faithful love and not sacrifice,
the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”
And Mark 12:30 says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart,
with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.”
You might be very religious, and you might follow all of the laws in the Bible, all the commandments,
but if you miss the one that actually matters, then you miss the whole point.
If you miss the law that says love God, then you miss the whole point.
And you know, God is not just some energy in the sky, He's a personal God.
He wants a personal relationship and He loves you.
He knows everything about you.
Psalm 139:1 says, “Lord, you have searched me and know me.
You know when I sit down and when I stand up; you understand my thoughts from far away.
You observe my travels and my rest; you are aware of all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue, you know all about it, Lord.”
And verse 13 says, “For it was You who created my inward parts;
You knit me together in my mother's womb. I will praise You.
Because I have been remarkably and wonderfully made.
Your works are wondrous, and I know this very well.
My bones were not hidden from You when I was made in secret,
when I was formed in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw me when I was formless;
all my days were written in Your book and planned before a single one of them began.
God, how precious Your thoughts are to me; how vast their sum is!
If I counted them, they would outnumber the grains of sand; when I wake up, I am still with you.”
Wow, that is how David's relationship was with God. What is your relationship with God like?
You know, you might feel all alone at times in this world,
but God is always watching, you are never alone, and He loves you.
You might have great Biblical knowledge.
You might be able to quote verses like this and remember the whole Bible,
and you might read a lot of Spiritual books, but if you don't love God, it means nothing.
1 Corinthians 13:1 says, “If I speak human or angelic tongues but do not have love,
I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
If I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge,
and if I have all faith so that I can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.
And if I give away all my possessions, and if I give over my body in order to boast but do not have love,
I gain nothing."
Be honest with yourself.
Do you have love? Do you really love God with everything that you are? Do you love Him?”
I cannot answer this question for you, only you can answer this question.
You have to walk your own way, your own journey with God.
Everybody has their own journey with God.
Sometimes our paths can cross, but I cannot live your journey for you.
God wants a relationship with you, and if you don't know Him, do you want to know Him?
Are you ready to die, to meet God?
What a waste it would be if you come to the end of your life and you realize you focused all your time,
energy, all your attention on things that did not even matter.
But the one thing that mattered most of all you missed.
Are you ready to die?
Are you ready to meet God?
If you're not, then please watch this video here and I'll see you there.
And remember, God loves you, and I love you too.
Bye!