Daily Devotion

 With Pastor Ancel Presnell

“ZEALOUS RELIGION IS STILL DEAD RELIGION”

Apostle Paul knew all there was to know about zealous religion. He himself, prior to his conversion, was a persecuting and murderous Pharisee. He knew all about being a zealous religionist. There are fanatics in various religions today that have a zeal for their religion that emboldens them to do unthinkable things to others, and even themselves.

There are those who think that people are accepted by God because of their passion and zeal in their religious works. For instance, one of America’s most well-known pastors is Joel Olsteen. He once had this to say in an interview with Christian Post: “”I think Christians should take the high ground and respect where other people are coming from. What I’ve seen in life is most people get their faith or their religious background from their parents,” said Osteen to The Christian Post… “I always realize — because I travel to a lot of different countries with different people of different faiths — I realize this is the way they were raised, and I think people will know who the Disciples of Christ are by our love for one another. So I think respect and understanding is.” (Funaro, 2015)

This is a direct statement of disobedience to Jude 1:3—”³ Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.” Religion is dead, the people who are trusting in religion are spiritually dead as well. No matter how devoted, sincere, and zealous a person is in their religion, they must be born again.

As Christians, we must be careful not to fall into trusting in religious practices over trusting in Christ. Should we render works to the Lord? Yes! However, our salvation is in no way attached to any religious practice, our salvation rests in Christ’s finished work on Calvary! We must take Paul’s words concerning his fellow ethnic Jews of his day, and their trust in and zeal for religious works, as a dead-end road. They trusted in this in ignorance.

Romans 10:2—”² For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.”