Many flock to a building weekly saying their going to church, where they are hearers of the word and not doers of it. I can’t tell you how many times years ago I would go to a service and afterward watch a few lifting a bottle of alcohol in their vehicles or those standing next to me begin their next half hour of gossiping as I stood wondering why they are totally oblivious as to where they just were the last hour? Therein is the answer of what is the difference between religion and faith?

Fortunately we have scripture to teach us what the difference is. Religion goes by what it can see, and faith is believing in what is unseen and knowing it exists by the word of God alone! Our Lord has taught us He was not of the world and neither are those who follow Him, and He has prayed for His own for they will not be accepted when they tell the truth of His ways as He knew they would be hated (John 17:13-26). When our Lord overturned the money changers who were buying and selling in the temple, He taught what so many missed then in His day and today in ours how if they would tear down the temple (building) He was teaching them of the spiritual church He would build when He rose again in three days! (John 2:19-22). This temple is still in the earth today through His spirit filled people who are the temple He has made them to be! ( 1 Corinthians 3:16,17) Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.

Man has to go by what He can see, touch and feel, and not believing by faith alone as God expects His people to do. God is and has always been in the spiritual realm, and it is by His spirit does He expect to be worshiped by His own (John 4:23,24) But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

Both FAITH and RELIGION are addressed in scripture, and both are explained perfectly what each one is!

FAITH– Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1).

RELIGION– But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. ( James 1:22-27).

The world offers many denomination’s and religion’s to follow, but there is only one faith scripture teaches us of! (2 Corinthians 5:7) For we walk by faith, not by sight.

Do you go to church or are you the church God has called you to be? https://precioussheepofrenown.com/2021/04/20/are-we-to-go-to-church-or-are-we-the-church-part-one/

https://precioussheepofrenown.com/2021/04/21/are-we-to-go-to-church-or-are-we-the-church-part-two/