Religiholics

Religion - Christian religion - would, and does, get a hold of us by the balls and lead us around to jump through hoops, to apply ourselves to Talmudic standards and legalese, to measure up to the perception, as conceived in the minds of the religious elite educated and trained in cookie making, tossing in a measure of this, a cup of that, baked and cooled and set out in a very attractive Christmas display. And our religious elite knows what is best for us. They have set themselves to sifting through the book, to pull this principle and that. Juggle this verse and syncretise it with that one. Christian faith ceases in being the reality of faith and relation to the Living God and succumbs to the ease and comfort of knowing the rules. We are Religiholics. Addicted to perpetually re-definable measures of arbitrary codes - multiple codes. Ask a different pastor, and I use the title pastor loosely, or religious expert, and you will get as many sets of codes, as men defining them. Of course there are the super codifiers - the ones who have gleaned the most, the keepers of the faith, the influencers, the ones that all the others base their sifted morals on. The Gamaliels - teachers of the new law - the builders and trainers of the persecutor Sauls. And should we not line up, theyll just squeeze a little harder. The goal - the purpose - is not to KNOW - to experience the intimacy and immediacy of the Creator God, Too relate, to commune, to hear, to respond - But too conform - Too fit the mold And the measure of love becomes a perverted caricature encapsulated and embodied in the Code. No longer is the living resident indwelling Spirit of God related to, drawn upon, and relied on. Life is buried and bound and wrapped in a shroud of religious grave clothes. For a significant number, I believe the overwhelming vast majority of the church, Life - in relation to the Spirit - in us, is a fantasy. We have confused our religious grave clothes, and the ordered dignified religious image - as the Spirit - and what is of the Spirit. We are so good at being religious, and codifying our doctrine, that we have become desensitized to the reality that there even is a Life deeper, more real, and vital than our Religion. But as long as we have our super-gurus, and as long as they dont squeeze too hard, and maybe if theyll just stroke us a little - Religion will be just fine. Never mind that it is not the real thing. Religion - Christian religion - being bound by the code = masturbation of the soul (presumed as spiritual). Immediacy of intimacy and relation with Christ in you, the Word, the Spirit from your innermost being - Now thats passionate love making. Its time to stop living in fantasies in our minds and experience the real thing. Stop reading about love making and attempting it as a technical operation put together from a play book - and jump in - become consumed in the passion - dont worry about the

mistakes - the imperfections - youll get through it - and enjoy it. And there is NO guilt. Thats that old religion. FYI - concerning that old Christian religion - I dont measure up - and I dont care anymore. Im married to another. DO YOU not know, brethrenfor I am speaking to men who are acquainted with the Lawthat legal claims have power over a person only for as long as he is alive? For [instance] a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives; but if her husband dies, she is loosed and discharged from the law concerning her husband. Accordingly, she will be held an adulteress if she unites herself to another man while her husband lives. But if her husband dies, the marriage law no longer is binding on her [she is free from that law]; and if she unites herself to another man, she is not an adulteress. Likewise, my brethren, you have undergone death as to the Law through the [crucified] body of Christ, so that now you may belong to Another, to Him Who was raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God. When we were living in the flesh (mere physical lives), the sinful passions that were awakened and aroused up by [what] the Law [makes sin] were constantly operating in our natural powers (in our bodily organs, in the sensitive appetites and wills of the flesh), so that we bore fruit for death. But now we are discharged from the Law and have terminated all intercourse with it, having died to what once restrained and held us captive. So now we serve not under [obedience to] the old code of written regulations, but [under obedience to the promptings] of the Spirit in newness [of life]. Romans 7:1-6