Religion Is Not About You

After my last post, you may have gotten the impression that religion is about people and their choices. Let me clarify, it's not about me, it's about God. Organized religion is a structure for giving attention to a higher being. Not because he is a needy child, but because he deserves it (he is God after all). So when I talk about going to church to indoctrinate myself, it's not primarily for self improvement (Christian term: sanctification). It's so I can be reminded of what God has already done (Christian term: justification). The Bible is full of stories about the terrible mistakes humans made: Adam ate the apple, Noah couldn't convince one person to repent and join him, Moses regular doubted God and wasn't even allowed into the promised land, Jonah refused to obey and was upset when God saved the repentant people of Nineveh, and even David killed a man to cover up his adultery. It's not what men are doing that makes me show up church, it's what God has done for that long list of broken men (and those like them).