What binds us, blinds us.

“It’s the church that needs saved.” I keep hearing this . I believe God keeps speaking this to me for a reason. God has saved and continues to save me from it too. No, not church as in the body of Christ. Church as in religion.

Religion isn’t just a word, or group of people. There’s a spirit. The religious spirit. It’s dangerous. It’s deceitful. It’s deadly. It’s angry. It’s judgmental. It’s prideful.

I asked god today, how? How does it work? I believe he told me that it gains access through works of the flesh, through pride and self exaltation. It gains access when our eyes are taken off of god and placed on ourselves or man. When we idolize our works above him. He is salvation. It begins to harden the heart and separates our head knowledge from our heart.

It led me to thinking of my own journey… Do we trust god for who he is, or do we hold on to what WE believe? What WE are comfortable with. Do we go to church because god led us there or do we go because we are “supposed to”. Because it’s comfortable and familiar.

Jesus never told us we’d be comfortable, he told us to trust him. To take heart. Is his word the infallible truth or isn’t it?

We can “know” scripture, but not have the revelation of it. The Holy Spirit is who brings us into the truth of god’s word. If we in the church deny holy spirit’s full existence or refuse to acknowledge him at all, what heavenly revelation are we receiving?

We are only receiving man’s knowledge. Merely human understanding.

Man’s “knowledge” of scripture led to Jesus death. The religious spirit led to denying the very god who came to save his people. Do we really want to camp there, too?

When we stop trusting god for who HE is and turn our trust to who we are, what we can do on our own, in our own works, we begin to lose focus of his grace and love. That grace and love is what leads to intimacy with god, hearing his voice and trusting his path. It leads to pure motives, pure worship, pure obedience, pure love, pure servanthood and so much more.

When we believe the lie of following man, following ourselves, we find ourselves in works based religion. Taking our eyes off god and putting them on us. The truth is, looking to god is the most restful, peaceful, faithful thing we can do. When we can truly rest in trusting god completely and his path ahead, he leads us into all things. Into revelation and truth that we couldn’t grasp, obtain or reveal in 1,000 years of trying to religiously work our way there. His spirit sets us free of the things we can’t on our own.

I say these things, because it is personal. I have walked through it myself.

I have learned no amount of working in my own flesh leads me to breakthrough/deliverance/ revelation quicker than trusting HIM. Listening for and to HIM. Seeking HIM. Trusting HIS spirit in me to do the good work, to lead me into all things. When I have truly been led by his spirit, trusting completely on and in him, that is when I have felt him most tangibly and encountered him most powerfully.

It has been in my weakest, most vulnerable moments that I have found myself touched by god the most. My pride, my works, my doing has never led me there but by his grace and love alone.

“For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not by works, lest anyone should boast.”—Ephesians 2:8-9

Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.-John 3:6

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.-Romans 8:1-2

“…God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”-James 4:6