Religion says that if I pray every day or week at a certain time, go for long vigils in church, finish all the Sunday School classes on offer, have a Jesus reigns. Repent or perish sticker on my room door or my car bumper, then I am holy. If I should stop doing these things, my holiness will evaporate.

Religion is doing in order to get. It is doing the rituals and motions with the goal of feeling holy and chasing away negative circumstances of life. In return, I look forward to goodness and success – whatever that means to me – and a sense of personal satisfaction. All because of what I have done.

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God doesn’t want to hook up

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Religion is like the concept of friends with benefits: We hook up, I do this and you do that, and we both get what we want. Nothing more, nothing less. Do not expect anything different from me. That’s the deal.

“I despise religion”, said God in the Book of Amos and many other times in the Bible.

To paraphrase what he said, “Take away your church meetings and special events, your offerings (i.e. money and donations to church in our day) and your singing. I don’t want you to do them just because you are trying to escape misfortune. I don’t want a transaction; your hearts are not really with me”.

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God doesn’t want to hook up. He wants love and total commitment. Kisses are good but they are not definite evidence of true love. Our prayers are not necessary evidence of a humble heart in tune with God.

In Amos 5, what I genuinely find interesting is God’s definition of a heart that’s really in tune with him: Stop trampling the poor just because you want to get rich, don’t take bribes, stop depriving justice in court… But let justice roll on like a river. No extra church traditions, ceremonies or special events; just love.

True love is all what God is about.

If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
1 Corinthians 13:1

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