Religion - releasing all burdensome?

Sometimes people ask me if I’m religious. That’s a word I have something of an aversion to.

The word ‘Religion’ is to do with the purpose and direction of the universe in relation to a higher being (a god or gods), involving a set of beliefs, practices, worship, devotion, and morals. So why am I uncomfortable with being named a religious person?

For me it is a term too vague: it simply divides the atheist from the rest. I’m a follower of Jesus (albeit an imperfect one) and, as such, have no desire to be grouped in with what is sometimes called the ‘world religions’.

I wish to urge that we should sidestep ideas of religion per se and each of us consider coming first to a person - the man Jesus. A Christian is one who trusts his/her life, now and forever, into the hands of Jesus. Such trust or devotion are high stakes indeed unless of course Jesus is divine. If he is, then it seems to me that it logically follows that all God-honouring worship and devotion belong exclusively to Jesus. Many will disagree but actually that is orthodox, biblical, Christian teaching.

God recognises our ignorance in matters of religion. Whether we are religious or not, he lovingly offers us the opportunity to turn from the darkness that blinds us and then to embrace the light that gives sight i.e. Jesus, who says ‘I am the light of the world’.

Jesus was critical of the religious leaders of his day because they laid heavy burdens upon their people in the name of religious practice and tradition. That is why he said, ‘Come to me all of you who are burdened and heavy laden and I will give you rest for your souls’.

Is your experience of religion releasing or burdensome? Maybe there are other pressures from which you wish to be free. Whatever, Jesus says he is the answer to our deepest need.

The Manifestation of Jesus

The 2025 political party conferences are almost over. I wonder how many times manifestoes were mentioned.

Obviously, the word manifesto comes out of the word manifest and means to publicly put forward a set of intentions, objectives and motives. I’ve always liked the sound of that word ‘manifest’, even the way it looks in print on the page!

After I became a Christian, I found that the word manifest was to become essential to my understanding of Jesus. Here is why.

The God of everything is a personal being but, as humans, we have no categories or capacity with which to understand and relate to him. In love, God condescended to come to us as a man, showing forth (or manifesting) his very self. In this way we could know and understand what he is like in human terms. When we ask, ‘So what is God really like?’ The answer is, ‘like Jesus’.

In light of this, has Jesus anything to say to the hopeless, those who are sad, the complacent, arrogant and proud? What about the unbelieving or those with just a little faith? What is his mind towards religious leaders who don’t actually feed those in their charge with true spiritual food? We can go into the four Gospels in the New Testament and see Jesus addressing these things and other matters, while being assured that what he says is perfectly in line with God. Jesus himself said, ‘I and the Father are one’.

We may say Jesus has a manifesto. He has a plan: a purpose in which his intentions, objectives and motives are all present. Central is his objective to fulfil the role of God’s Good Shepherd who, as foretold in the Old Testament, is intent on seeking out his lost sheep and saving them from ultimate harm. So dedicated to his sheep is Jesus, that he laid down his life and took the slaughter that otherwise would have befallen them.

How do we feel about being referred to as a lost sheep? If such talk offends us we will likely want to evade or hide from the things of God and so forfeit the good intentions that he has for us. Those who are glad and thankful to be found by him, can genuinely relate to the 23^rd Psalm that’s often sung at funerals, ‘The Lord is MY Shepherd…’.

Fundamental cause of our sufferings

Conservative Leader, Kemi Badenoch, has told the BBC how she lost her faith in God after reading about the abuse that Josef Fritzl inflicted on his daughter Elisabeth. He had kept her locked in a basement for 24 years and regularly raped her. Ms Badenoch said of Elisabeth, ‘She prayed every day to be rescued, and I thought, “I was praying for all sorts of stupid things . . . why were those prayers answered, and not this woman’s prayers?”’. As a result, her faith in God was extinguished ‘like someone blew out a candle’.

Does Christianity offer an explanation as to why some people are subjected to so much pain, heartache and suffering, whilst others seem to get by comparatively easily? No, but it does offer a different perspective and answers deeper questions.

Generally, our world-view is that this life is all that there is and we need to enjoy it as best as we can. We are tempted to feel short-changed when our felt needs and our hopes are frustrated. How much worse when real pain and suffering come to our door and enter in.

The perspective that God presents to us is of a different order, one outside our natural mindset. Nevertheless, for many of us it isn’t something that we are unfamiliar with – it’s what the Scriptures say (Genesis chapters 1-3).

‘Sin’, i.e. rebellion against God, entered the world. The creation that God originally made as ‘good’ is thereby broken. Critically, the people he originally made as ‘very good’ are also broken and the result is that we each know suffering and death.

God has not remained aloof nor is he powerless to rescue us from our predicament: He entered into our situation personally by becoming a man - the Son of God, Jesus. He knew rejection, sorrows, grief, betrayal, pain, suffering and death to a depth that no one else has. Why?

On our behalf, Jesus was paying the ultimate penalty for our inbuilt bias that steers us from God and all of the wrong thoughts, words and actions that flow out of this. God loves us so much: He gave Jesus his most precious Son so that whoever entrusts themselves to him will not be lost when this life ends but will have new and eternal life. God himself ‘will wipe every tear from their eyes’; no more death, mourning, crying or pain.