As a kid, and, if I’m honest with myself, as an adult I have many times tried to pass off my relationship with church and Jesus as just a mildly religious thing I do. Admitting that I believe that God who so loved the world that he sent his only Son Jesus to die for my sins and three days later rise from the dead. And more than just believing that to be true, I now have a relationship with Him!? Just being religious is much easier.
Religion puts us in the position of trying to make God happy. Feed the poor. Pray like this. Don’t break commandments. Do these five things and you will flourish! We are trying to reach out to God to to find our happiness. And here’s the thing, we’re never gonna make it, we will never be good enough! The difference between Christianity and religion is that Jesus has come and is reaching out to us! Attempting to flourish without a relationship with Jesus is just being religious. We love because he first loved us. We feed the poor, pray, follow the commandments because he first loved us. To truly “flourish like a palm tree”, you need Jesus.
1 “Come, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and he who has no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.
2 Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.
3 Incline your ear, and come to me;
hear, that your soul may live;
Isaiah 55:1-3