Religion and Faith

      Recently, a brother in Christ made a comment to me about religion and faith that has been sitting on my mind a lot lately. In fact every time I sit down to write it's all I think about. This brother wrote about how he was not religious, he said he was a Christian and that he was a follower of Jesus alone, not religion or it's man made rules. This made total sense to me because I feel the same way, but I know many would be confused about the statement. Many do not know the difference between practicing religion and having a relationship with God, this was the mistake of the Pharisees also.
       Pharisees were very well taught in the laws and practices of their people, they knew the traditions and scriptures extremely well and were prideful of this. They believed that this knowledge and keeping the traditions of their fore-fathers made them more righteous than others. The Pharisees would point out when others transgressed the laws or traditions in judgment of them, like they did to the disciples of Yeshua in Mark 7:5, this was done in an attempt to display the unrighteousness of Jesus's company and discredit the disciples (also Matthew 15:1-2). The Pharisees believed that with all their knowledge and religious practices that they were pleasing to God and man. They thought they were righteous and that they could identify the Messiah when He came, they thought they knew what they were looking for, but when Jesus stood before them they could not identify Him as the Christ (Messiah). This was because they had the knowledge about the prophecies and kept the religious practices but they didn't have a relationship with God. They didn't know God as Abraham and Moses did, they didn't seek Him intimately so they couldn't recognize God's voice in Yeshua. They didn't serve God in their religious practices but instead served themselves and the traditions of their elders to appear righteous and holy before others. I can think of no better example of this than the one Yeshua used in response to their accusations against His disciples found at Matthew 15:3-9 and Mark 15:6-13. Religion is the traditions of man, it is superficial and not from the heart, and not what God wants.
       What is faith then if it is not the rules and traditions of man, what is it that God wants? He wants our hearts, He wants total surrender to His will and our obedience, and He wants our love for Him to reach out and touch others for His glory. He wants us to love others as He has loved us (John 13:34). God's true religion is not of actions or works alone but with faith and a devoted loving heart that results in actions (Ephesians 2:8-9,Galatians 2:16; James 2:18 ). God wants us to do the right thing because we love Him, not because it is expected and we have to. Faith in God should be and is like the loving relationship between family, with love and trust as the driving force behind all of our actions and interactions. God wants us to come to Him personally, seeking Him with all we have, so we can spend eternity with Him, so we are spared from death and it's torments. God wants us to honor Him first, worshipping Him in spirit and in truth (John 4:24), that is what is pleasing to God and that is a faith relationship not religion.

Romans 1:17
For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”         

Galatians 2:16
Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.

Ephesians 2:8-10
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.