Daily Devotion
With Pastor Ancel Presnell
“JESUS’ TAKE ON RELIGION”
The most religious group of people in Jesus’ day were the Pharisees. They were Jewish men who were considered experts on the Law of God and all things related to the Torah and Judaism. Make no mistake about it, these men were well-read and highly intelligent, however, they were ignorant when it came to their relationship with God!
There is no group of people that Jesus spoke any more direct and scathing to than the Pharisees. He called out their practices that they were so proud of. He scathed them on majoring on outward practices while ignoring inward sin. He did not mince words when describing their behavior; He flat out called them hypocrites!
Jesus and His word have not changed at all concerning religion these past 2000 years. He is not interested in our devotion to religion, and He is not impressed by it either. Jesus is concerned about what He knows about our heart. Religion is not limited to all the various false religions of the world; all religion is false apart from trusting in Christ alone for salvation.
As believers, we should attend church, serve ministries attached to the local church, give to the church, and fellowship with the church. However, we must not trust in any such practices for salvation or to think that we are any more accepted or loved by God because of them. God loves us and He demonstrated that love as laid out in John 3:16. We are accepted by God through and by the shed blood of Christ and our belief in Him and what He did on the cross! That is in no way religion; faith in Christ alone for salvation is a relationship with the true and living God! Take a moment and read the words of Christ concerning religionists and their practice of religion.
Matthew 23:23—33 “23 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. 24 Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. 25 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. 26 Thoublind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also. 27 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness. 28 Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. 29 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, 30 And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. 31 Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. 32 Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. 33 Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?”
