Articles
What is Your View of Religion?
Have you given any thought to your spiritual well-being? General religious practices are not uncommon in the world, and an individual would have had to grow up in a frosted bubble to deny that the world’s populations worship: something, somebody, or some entity.
With this thought in mind, “How do you view religion in general and your spiritual well-being specifically?” There are many ways a person may view their spiritual condition: (1) Individuals may deny that man has a spirit, such as did the Sadducees (Acts 23:8). (2) They may “profess themselves to be wise” and make for themselves all manner of images of man, birds, four-footed beasts, and creeping things, as was the case presented by the Apostle Paul in Romans 1:22-23. (3) An individual may think that the Lord dwells “in temples made with hands” and is “served by men’s hands” as the Apostle Paul stated in Acts 17:24-25. (4) They may think, as did the Ephesians, that an image of Diana “fell down from Jupiter,” Acts 19:35. (5) They may think, as did Naaman, that God will work through some prophet who “will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of Jehovah his God, and wave his hand over the place, and recover the leper” (2 Kings 5:11). (6) Some, over the ages, have claimed to have had a spiritual experience: God appeared to them, spoke to them, or touched them in some miraculous fashion, and revealed his will to them turning their sinful lives around, and now they have a message for the world! What is your view of religion?
Whatever your view of religion, ask yourself whether your conclusion comes from an emotional, or a rationally educated source. Jehovah, speaking through the Prophet Hosea, said of Israel, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I also will forget thy children” (Hosea 4:6). You see, emotions are unpredictable and based upon the baser nature of man. The Apostle Paul, once said, “For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God” (Romans 10:2-3). In this text, righteousness is a standard. Though their zeal was evident, they refused to subject themselves to God’s standard, which is what the Apostle Paul said about the Gentiles who, knowing God “glorified him not as God, neither gave thanks; but became vain in their reasonings, and their senseless heart was darkened” (Romans 1:21).
Upon what is your religion based?
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