We are called to make and be the difference. To be the salt and light of the world, which was Jesus when he was physically here on earth and still is. He passed that down to us when he ascended to heaven. You see when Jesus walked here on earth, he walked with sinners but notice how he never became like them. Jesus didn’t get contaminated, instead he influenced their lives. I know we aren’t perfect but everyday we should strive to live and be like Jesus. Jesus didn’t aplaude people for their sins but he did love the sinner. Through his love, gentleness, patience, and service lives were changed. Now, he understood not everyone was going to be changed but he still planted the seed. Now a days I see people in the world making more of a change than we Christian’s. We need to be better Christians and really exemplify who our Father in heaven is. If we have the answer in us, we should be the ones making the most change. We Christians sometimes tend to fall on the religious side that society portrays us to be. We need to stop offering religion to people and instead offer a true relationship with God. Jesus came here on earth to break protocols. He came to show people a new way of living. He came to break religious acts. When you are religious you kind of put God in a box. You don’t know what God is capable of doing, going to do and wants to do. God can do the impossible possible. It’s about getting to know God through Jesus. Being religious sets boundaries to getting to Jesus. That if you aren’t perfect you can’t recieve Jesus. I was reading an article about why people don’t like to be called religious and the author stated something that is so valid. When Jesus walked this earth, he reserved his harshest words for these types of religious people, the ones who thought that their actions were more important than their hearts, the ones who patted themselves on the back for saying their prayers properly and yet ignored the plight of the hurting ones around them, the ones who ultimately decided Jesus himself needed to die.What is it worth you giving to people if in your heart you genuinely don’t want to do it- you just want to check off a box and say you did something kind. Your heart is clearly not in the right place and you really don’t know God if you do that. In the word of God, God speaks about the heart so much. Some verses are…

1. “But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.””
‭‭1 Samuel‬ ‭16‬:‭7‬ ‭NIV‬‬

2. “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”
‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭4‬:‭23‬ ‭NIV‬‬

3. “As water reflects the face, so one’s life reflects the heart.”
‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭27‬:‭19‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Being religious is praising God the way “YOU” think he wants to be praised. These verses are clear to me that God looks beyond what’s physically seen, he sees the genuineness of your heart. Get to know God truly with his word and you’ll see how he truly wants to be praised. How he truly wants you to walk your day to day life. God in his word states, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew‬ ‭22‬:‭36‬-‭37‬, ‭39‬ ‭NIV‬‬). Meaning love on people… that’s not to say that he calls us to aplaude sin, but he calls us with love to correct people. There’s ways to change people rather than telling them, “you are going to hell if you don’t do this or that”. God didn’t aplaude the woman who was going to be stoned for her past he said to go and sin no more with love.

So I challenge you today, to be this type of Christian that follows this verse, James 1:22 ESV “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves”. Not this type of Christian, Titus 1:16 ESV “They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work”.