Religion. Healthy or Unhealthy? What do you think?

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When I worked in the Dallas Fort Worth area in the first few years of my ministry I felt religion around me was making me more unhealthy instead of healthy.  Then I moved to Denver and felt that outside of the Bible belt there was a less judgmental attitude against me because there was less religion by comparison.  Now with my retirement I have moved back into the DFW area and am seeing some very healthy expressions of Jesus in His church.  This has made me rethink some things. 

I may be way off base here but here goes:

Healthy people whether religious or not will not be negative, critical and judgmental people.  They will speak the truth in love in a way that makes an impact.

If they are literate and have access to written literature, they do not use this ability to put others down, but to lift others up.

We are quite comfortable during Christmas to sing about baby Jesus, but we do not want anything to do with the adult Jesus who demands that we love and pray for our enemies instead of kill them.

We do not want to move the love of God into our hearts because it means we are no longer in control.

We don’t want to receive the real Jesus into our minds on a daily basis because it stretches us.  It hurts. 

We want glorious, beautiful, comforting affirmation from our friends, not hard hitting truth from Jesus.

Our own system of religion, whether Jews lead by the writings of Moses or Christians lead by the  Apostle Paul’s writings, the reality is that it (our own system and angles) accuses us of inconsistency in applying to ourselves what we apply to others.  We want to load others instead of forgive others.

Our pretension of being perfect as a child of God is a failure.  Our hope must be in the grace and mercy of God for our lives.  God can work with brokenness and repentance, but He will not join us in our self-deceit.

People of faith preserve scripture and publically affirm it as a word from God.  These writings can lead us to be a people of grace or people of judgment.  If we follow the letter of the law and apply it to judge others and ourselves it becomes unhealthy.  If we read, meditate and pray and allow the Spirit of God to fill our hearts it makes us more loving toward ourselves  and others.


John 5.39-47, Romans 7, 2 Corinthians 3.6, 2 Timothy 3.

Larry Wishard


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