I am anti-religion

I’m feeling very emotional. As I finished updating my facebook status saying how grateful I am for all the best things in my life, I think the reality of it must’ve hit home because I felt like I’d just been stabbed in the heart (in a good way). How do I repay? I can’t.

The gift of salvation is the one I want to focus on because I think that’s the one that brought me to my knees in tears just now. When God opens your eyes to what He’s done, when you’re standing at the cross and you know exactly why it’s happening, when you hear for yourself the words come out of Jesus mouth “It is paid in full”, it cuts you to the deepest place in your heart. No-one can explain the feeling to you. No-one can do the cross justice with words... The moment when Jesus breathed his last breath, the curtain tearing in two, the sky going black, the soldiers saying “Surely He was the Son of God…” That was the first time in history when we could say with confidence “Oh death, where is your sting?” because God in His infinite mercy had actually done it. He’d taken our debt upon Himself and paid it and opened heaven’s doors to sinners like us.

It really is apt that the date we write down everyday is based on a time before Christ and a time after Him because He cut history in half when He came to earth in the body of a man, taking on all our frailties, living a sinless life and paying the price for our sins with His own blood. It is MinDBlowing.

People often say to me “Are you religious?” and my answer to that is “No. I am anti-religion. I am saved by the blood of Jesus. I do not have to earn my own way to salvation through religious practices and doing the right thing. I’m a sinner… always was, always will be. But the price for my sins has been paid. And I have a relationship with God. I know Him and I know His voice. And the closer I get to Him, the more I want to dedicate my every waking breath to Him. The more I look at Him, the more the things the world has to offer fade away. The more I know about Him, the more He becomes enough for me.

Stephen Covey says in his book “The Seven Habits of Highly effective people” that we must “Begin with the end in mind”. Think about what you want to hear on the day you die. Once you’ve worked out what you want people to be saying at your funeral, then you have a clear idea of what your real goals are. The words I want to hear on the day I die when I’m standing at the gate of eternity are “Welcome home, my good and faithful servant.” So if I follow Covey’s advice and begin with the end in mind, then that is my goal in this short life.