Quote:
Originally Posted by Light
There is a huge disconnect in what you say.
First you reintroduce religion to God which as I say has nothing to do with God, and in fact is a barrier to communion with God.
Second you cannot worship anyone you don't love. You cannot pretend to love God by pretending to do so in order to show off or buy your way into Heaven. That's why there are a lot of clergy in Hell in "Dante's Inferno". God isn't stupid.
Third in order to worship God, you must get to know him. You don't know anyone until you meet them personally. One cannot get to know God personally through religion because God is put on a pedestal that one cannot reach.
Once one gets to know God within, the love for God is naturally off the charts. Worship is not an issue at that point. Worship is a natural offspring of exponential love.
Contrast that with someone being forced or acquiesced to worship a figurehead of a religion because they have to because they are threatened with eternal torture if they don't is like night and day.
|
Your whole post is a non sequitur. Do you think Jesus told the Samaritan woman that a time was coming and now is when God is going to "force" people to worship him? Is that what you think Jesus was saying? To worship God "in spirit and in truth" is an unduly burdensome command?
But to go with flow of your logic, i.e. knowing God, then loving Him as that true knowledge of him grows, then explain to me why anyone who claims to have a real personal, intimate, loving relationship with God wouldn't be compelled to follow Jesus' instructions in John 4? Didn't Jesus himself also teach, "If you love me, you'll keep my commandments" (Jn 14:15)? Willing and joyful obedience to our Creator-Redeemer is proof-positive that one loves Him. Anything less than this is merely lip service love; yet we are to love in word and DEED (Act 26:20)!
To take this a step further, if one really knows God, then one is also compelled to
trust Him.
In fact, scripture tells us that "faith without deeds is dead" (Jas 2:26). And what "deeds" did James have in mind? Would they not be good deeds that flow from from obedience to the Royal Law (Jas 2:8)!? After all, it is God's law that is good, holy and righteous (Rom 7:12). Therefore, anything that flows from it, logically, must share the same attributes
Finally, from the very beginning did not God require obedience from our first parents? And when our first parents sinned and felt profound guilt for their sin, didn't they immediately wax "religious" by trying to hide their shame and guilt before their Creator by covering their nakedness with fig leaves (Gen 3:7)? Yet, their vain religious attempt was not good enough for God! Their shame and guilt required atonement by shedding of an innocent animal's blood, which God performed. He clothed them! So yes...from the beginning -- even long before the Law of Moses -- God waxed "religious" too (Gen 3:21)!
