Editor’s Note: It’s Sit & Listen Saturday at Devotionals Daily. Enjoy reading as well as listening to this devotion from Jefferson Bethke, from his bestselling book Jesus > Religion. Listen on the blog or on your Alexa device by enabling the skill and then prompting, “Alexa, ask devotionals to read today’s devotion.” Relax; you don’t…
The Church: Strength and Service
A Place of Strength For me, the best part about the Church is that God has uniquely wired it as His vehicle to heal and offer grace to hurting people. The church is a shelter from the storms. There have been times when my sin and guilt and shame have so overtaken me, I felt like I…
Religion Makes Enemies / Jesus Makes Friends
We are trained to make enemies. From birth it’s always “us versus them.” Black vs. whites. Conservatives vs. liberals. Rich vs. poor. Republican vs. Democrat. Americans vs. whoever we’re at war with. Let’s be honest: sometimes Christians are the worst. Calvinists vs. Arminians. Complementarians vs. egalitarians. Charismatics vs. cessationists. Catholics vs. Protestants. As if the world…
We All Worship Something
When I was at my non-Christian college, Jesus was fairly attractive to people in my circle. They enjoyed hearing about His grace and had no qualms about some of His teachings, but they usually got upset when they realized Jesus asked for everything. When they’d see those passages about Jesus telling people to give up…
Why I Think Jesus Hates Religion and You Should, Too
It was that time of the year when you could feel a mixture of intense emotions in the air — the joy of the semester almost being done, along with the pressure of having to pass through final exams first. People were stressed. The campus was fairly quiet as students were trying to make up for all the studying they…
I’ve Tasted Grace
What if I told you Jesus came to abolish religion? What if I told you getting you to vote Republican really wasn’t His mission? What if I told you religious right doesn’t automatically mean Christian? And just because you call some people blind, doesn’t automatically give you vision. I mean, if religion is so great, why has it…
Jesus, True Jubilee
I remember when I first started following Jesus, I did what most people do. I opened the Bible. I didn’t really have much of a context of where to start or what to read so I wasn’t too far off from the classic “close your eyes, open the Bible to any page, point your finger,…
Why I Think Jesus Hates Religion and You Should, Too — Part 2
Some of you may be thinking, Wait a minute: you can’t hate religion and love Jesus. Jesus IS a religion. To which I’d answer yes and no. If you mean by religion, “a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe,” then yes and amen, Christianity is a religion. But by that definition, so is atheism.…
Jesus > Religion… God’s Scandalous Grace
Religion says, “God will love you IF…” / Jesus says, “God so loved…” When I had been following Jesus for almost a year, I was already seen as the token Christian guy on my college baseball team. I didn’t go to parties with the team and didn’t talk about girls the way they did. It was…