Religion Without Relationship - Life Lessons From CaiaphasSample

Caiaphas’ religion did not change him

At the crucifixion, we find the response of two witnesses to the crucified Jesus. 

Caiaphas and the religious crowd mocked Him. Mark 15:31-32 tells us “… In the same way the chief priests also, along with the scribes, were mocking Him among themselves and saying, "He saved others; He cannot save Himself.  "Let this Christ, the King of Israel, now come down from the cross, so that we may see and believe!" 

It is precisely because He would not come down that we believe in Him. Jesus did something greater than come down from the cross - He rose from the dead! Yet they did not believe even then. 

But many of the priests did eventually believe, as we read in Acts 6:7 A great many of the priests were obedient to the faith. But Caiaphas still did not believe

But we also see the response of the Roman soldier at the foot of the cross.

In Mark 15:39 we read “When the centurion, who was standing right in front of Him, saw the way He breathed His last, he said, "Truly this man was the Son of God!" 

This centurion saw many people crucified before; yet there was something so remarkable about Jesus that he said something about Jesus that he could say about no one else. He saw that Jesus was not like the other criminals who were crucified. He saw that He suffered unjustly and had a great deal of wrong done to him. 

Caiaphas saw Jesus, but left Calvary with a religion. The centurion saw Jesus, but left with a relationship!

God wants to have an intimate relationship with us and does everything He can do to bring us to the place where we will begin working to do what we need to do to have that intimacy. The difficulty is that we deceive ourselves into thinking we have an intimate relationship with God when we really do not. We think because we go to church regularly and pray before our meals or because we give money to the church and read our Bibles that we are doing what we need to do to have intimacy with God. 

But religious routines often degenerate into rituals and rituals into dead externalism. Religion without relationship tends to generate into a worship of form and practice that lacks in any real heart motivation for real ministry and any real concern for souls and lives. 

Do you have a religion or a relationship? Relationship brings about a change. Religion doesn’t.

Are you willing to invest the time necessary to get to know Him in a personal way?

Quote

“A lot of people think that Christianity is you doing all the righteous things you hate and avoiding all the wicked things you love in order to go to Heaven. No, that’s a lost man with religion. A Christian is a person whose heart has been changed; they have new affections.” ~ Paul Washer

Prayer

Lord, I thank You that You died for me so that I can have an intimate relationship with You. Help me not to be satisfied with mere religion. Amen