Am I Religious? Good Question

Religion noun
Definition of religion
1a: the state of a religious
a nun in her 20th year of religion
b(1): the service and worship of God or the supernatural
(2) : commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance
2: a personal set or institutionalised system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices
3 archaic: scrupulous conformity: CONSCIENTIOUSNESS
4: a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardour and faith
@credit Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary

By reading this definition, some people assume I am very religious, but their picture of what being religious is usually a picture of what I am not. I am a Christian, yes. But my faith does not centre around a bunch of regulations upon which I judge my behaviour and the behaviours of others to make sure we are all ticking off the boxes to make sure we all keep in God’s good books.

I don’t worship God because I am afraid that if I don’t, then God will punish me.

I don’t believe that saying specific prayers or performing certain rituals will put me in God’s good graces.

I don’t worship Him out of a sense of dry duty or tradition.

I worship him from a heart of gratefulness for all He does for me today and not just for what he did for me 2000 years ago by dying on a cross and rising from the dead. I serve him because he showed me how to be a servant through his actions. He reached out to me long before I reached out to him.

I worship him because of what he is doing for me today and what he will do for me tomorrow.

Most of all, I worship him because I love him. I love his heart; I love his works, and I love his transforming power at work in the lives of those I love.

Of course, I want to please him, and I want to please anyone I love. I love to discover what makes my loved ones happy. Their joy is my joy. When I make wrong choices that hurt his heart, my heart hurts.

There are things I don’t do even though I am tempted to do them because I know those things will drive a wedge between my heart and his.

Of course, I want my life to reflect His loving character to the world around me. And so, I do read the Bible to learn more about his character and to learn just how he does things.

Sometimes I mess up, but when I go to him in humility and without excuses, he’s waiting there for me and forgives me before I get the words out of my mouth. He doesn’t hold grudges; his mercy and love are new every morning.

No, I am not religious in the way you might assume me to be. I would find that unsatisfying. I love to laugh, and I love to have fun. I love to learn and discover who I truly am and how I fit into this glorious world.  I am still discovering ME even at my age! I love meeting new people and finding out what makes them tick. I don’t reject people because they believe differently different than me or because they automatically typecast me as being something I am not when they learn I am a Christ follower.

It all boils down to this, I am in a relationship with the God of the universe, and it’s not because of anything I have done or will do. Our relationship all revolves around this simple fact: I took him up on his offer, came to Him, gave him all my junk, and laid all my burdens down. Oh, and I gave him my heart, I gave him all of me. I am his, he is mine.  It’s more of a love story.

There’s no personal application today because this is my story. Hopefully, you’ve found your story and Christ is a major part of it.


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All Bible verses attributed to the ESV version unless otherwise indicated.

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Until Next Week,

©2019 Katherine Walden

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