It may seem silly, my saying that I am not religious, when I read the Bible every day, pray constantly, and especially since I have this ministry.
But, yet, I tell you, here and now and with conviction, that I am not religious.
So, nu, if I’m not religious, then what am I?
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The way I prefer to identify myself is as a God-fearing man.
I don’t want to say “a worshipful man” because that could be misunderstood, since there are so many wrong things in the world that people worship.
But religious? Nah- not a chance!
Why do I not want to be called religious, when so many people identify “religious” as a person who worships God?
It’s because most every Judeo-Christian religion I have ever encountered worships the religion more than it worships the one that religion was created to worship.
And, as I have said over and over, a million times: God has no religion!
Yeshua chided the Pharisees for creating man-made traditions that took precedence over what God commanded. Now, as I have said many times, this is not a condemnation of all traditions- no! It is condemning only those traditions which are treated as more important than what God said to do.
Religion, whether one of the plethora of Christian religions or one of the six different sects within Judaism, all pay more attention to their traditions, man-made rituals, man-made holidays, etc., than they do to what God said we should do.
Yes, even in Judaism, which is based on God’s Torah, we have many Talmudic traditions and regulations that far exceed what God, himself, said we should do and are considered as important as if God told it to Moses.
(Actually, the Talmud is considered to be the Oral Law, meaning commandments that God gave Moses but he did not write down, instead passing them down throughout the generations orally.)
For example, there is only a certain distance you can walk on the Shabbat.
There are two different sets of dishes, one for dairy and one for meat. And in some houses, there is a third set used solely for Pesach (Passover).
In some of the Orthodoxy, the husband and wife are separated in their bed by a sheet when performing intimate activities.
In Chasidic and Orthodox synagogues, the women sit in an upper chamber and the men in the lower chamber where the Torah is kept, or on different sides of the building, separated by a curtain.
And there are many other traditional requirements and even superstitions that are too many to list here.
Now, as for Christianity, I could on and on about their man-made holidays being celebrated while God-commanded Holy Days are totally ignored, or how the Torah is taught to be outdated, or many other things that are man-made commandments which totally ignore almost all of God’s commandments.
Not to mention there are dozens of Christian religions, all professing to worship the same God, but all with different ways to worship him.
So, am I “religious”, meaning to almost everyone that I follow the regulations and credos of a religion?
NO! I am NOT!
I worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and obey his instructions in the Torah to the best of my abilities. I am a God-fearing Jewish man, who if I have to identify my belief system, would call myself a Messianic Jew, but even within the Messianic Jewish community, there are some 5 different organizations, each with different ideas:
Chosen People Ministries; Messianic Jewish Alliance of America; Jews for Jesus; Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations; and Messianic Jewish Fellowship International.
Personally, I would not include Jews for Jesus because that is not a religious group, so to speak; it is actually a corporation with a corporate mission to introduce Yeshua to Jews.
So, if you believe that religion is more about itself than it is about God, then do as I do and stop saying you are “religious”.
When someone asks you what religion you are, say this:
I am a God-fearing person who worships and obeys the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and believes that Yeshua (Jesus) is the Messiah he promised to send.
Yeah, I know, it’s more of a mouthful than just saying “I’m religious”, but it is accurate and properly identifies who is most important to you.
Thank you for being here and please subscribe to my website and YouTube channel, buy my books and share these messages with everyone you know. Next time you are on Facebook, join my group called “Just God’s Word” (please read and agree to the rules), and remember that I always welcome your comments.
That’s it for now, so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!
