Daily Devotional For Monday, June 16, 2025

If you have been a Christian for any length of time, you know that the Christian faith is uniquely different. I illustrated this in yesterday’s devotional. In a nutshell, other faiths or religions are about humanity attempting to find something – peace or Nirvana through a series of works. It is the incorrect belief that if I do enough, I get to live in the afterlife. Christianity and the Christian faith is not about finding anything. It is about us being found. Jesus makes this clear in Luke 19:10, “For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost” (NLT). Notice the word “lost.” When we lose something, we will spend hours and even days at times trying to find it and when we find it, we celebrate.

This is why Luke’s Gospel has one chapter set aside just on this fact to illustrate something or someone being lost: the lost sheep (Luke 15:1-7), the lost coin (Luke 15:8-10) and the lost son (Luke 15:11-32). Knowing we were lost in our spiritual darkness, when Jesus came, He called us and gave His life so that we would know how to navigate through the spiritual darkness of this world. In Matthew 4:19, Jesus said to His first disciples this: “Come and follow Me” (NLT). He didn’t say, “Come and follow a bunch of rules, rituals and regulations.” Why? It were these very things: rules, rituals and regulations, that had increased people’s spiritual darkness. Now, there is nothing wrong in these in and of themselves. What is wrong is to think they will shine enough light to help us find our way through spiritual darkness.

When Jesus says to you and me, “Come and follow Me,” He is saying, “I am the Light of the World. Come and find your joy, your purpose, your reason for existing, your rest in Me and the meaning of life in and through Me.” This is one truth that distinguishes Christianity from other religions. This was revolutionary. We are not called to simply believe a set of certain doctrines, or to do rituals that come from those doctrines or obey and enact regulations that give us the false sense of hope from our works. We are called to follow a person – Jesus.

But sadly what most churches have done is reduce the Christian faith down to just another choice in the buffet line of religious options and rituals. I talked about this in yesterday's devotional. When Jesus asked those first disciples to follow Him in Matthew 4, yes they were fishermen. But they were also Jewish men entrenched in Jewish rules, rituals and regulations. Let me illustrate this. In the Old Testament, God gave the Ten Commandments. In Exodus 20, the 4th Commandment states they are to honor the Sabbath Day and keep it holy. They are not to do any work on the Sabbath.” The problem was, God did not specify what constituted work. When the Jews asked their religious leaders, “What constitutes work?”, they had no answer. So  the Jewish religious leaders decided to fill in this gap, which only gave the Jews a false sense of obedience and hope.

• For example, Jews asked, “If I travel on the Sabbath, is that work?” Is traveling around in your own home considered work? If you travel to a neighbor’s home, is that work? If you travel to another town, is that work? In response, these teachers laid down a new law, saying, “You can travel three thousand feet from your house on the Sabbath. One exception to this is if you have food that is within three thousand feet of your house to eat on the Sabbath. If that’s the case, then that food is an extension of your house, and you can travel three thousand feet from the place where your food is.” And what the Jews did was store food all over their towns so they could travel. They found a loophole. Basically, if you put food in the right places, you could spend the Sabbath traveling all over town.

• Pastor and author John MacArthur lists some more absurd Sabbath work rules: “Tailors did not carry a needle with them on the Sabbath for fear they might be tempted to mend a garment and thereby perform work. Nothing could be bought or sold, and clothing could not be dyed or washed. . . . Chairs could not be moved because dragging them might make a furrow in the ground, and a woman was not to look in a mirror lest she see a gray hair and be tempted to pull it out” (Source: John MacArthur, The MacArthur New Testament Bible Commentary, “ Vol. 2, “Matthew 8-15,” p. 282).

I could go on and on with this but I hope you get the point. What we needed was not more rules, rituals and regulations, but a relationship to God that saved us and made life bearable. Jesus said this in Matthew 11:28-30, “Come to Me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. (29) Take My yoke upon you. Let Me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. (30) For My yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light” (NLT). Do you see this? Do you get this?

Obviously, we do not need more rules, rituals and regulations. We are sinners. We are lost sinners lost in spiritual darkness. Christ comes to us. He finds us and He calls us to follow Him. There is nothing we can do to save ourselves. Like Hindus who wash in the Ganges River regularly, you and I could get baptized every week, but that will save us. We could go down every Sunday during the invitation and recommit our lives to Christ, but if we do now follow Him, we will remain enslaved to our sinful nature and enveloped in our spiritual darkness.

Religions that consist in rules, rituals and regulations as a means to God are superficial and demonic. In the New Testament, there are several conversations Jesus has with people who feel their religious rituals, regulations and rules will save them. Yet, they feel empty. They think, “If I just work harder at this, if I do better at this, then maybe I will please God enough to be saved.” In John 3, Ncodemus was this man. Nicodemus was this brilliant Old Testament scholar, but he did not get it. This is why Jesus said this to him in John 3:10, “You are a respected Jewish teacher, and yet you don’t understand these things?” (NLT).

Maybe you feel like Nicodemus did before he met Jesus – that keeping all the rules, rituals, and regulations, and believing a specific set of doctrines or checking some boxes on a card earns you God’s approval and acceptance. Could this possibly be why you still feel empty, void and lost in spiritual darkness? This is Christian author, Ian Thomas’ point in his book:

“You . . . seek to be godly by submitting yourself to external rules and regulations and by conforming to behavior patterns imposed upon you by the particular Christian society that you have chosen and in which you hope to be found “acceptable.” You will in this way perpetuate the pagan habit of practicing religion in the energy of the flesh, and in the very pursuit of righteousness commit idolatry in honoring “Christianity” more than Christ! In defiance of God’s Word, God’s mind, God’s will, and God’s judgment, men [and women] everywhere are prepared to dedicate to God what God condemns—the energy of the flesh! There is nothing quite so nauseating or pathetic as the flesh trying to be holy!” (Source: W. Ian Thomas, The Saving Life of Christ and The Mystery of Godliness, pp. 85, 101, and 181).

When I was a child growing up in my Southern Baptist Church, our tithing envelopes had boxes we were asked to check to indicate if we the previous week had done these religious rituals such as read the Bible daily, attended worship, witnessed, etc. In the attempt to hold us accountable, they created another problem. Even though these might save you from embarrassment, If you checked most or all, pride swelled up in your heart. If you didn’t do any, then you were tempted to lie. So, each week you did these religiously so not to be embarrassed and so you could be proud you did. What religious rituals do you do that if you were honest, pride swells up in you when you do these? Today, the boxes you might symbolically check are: attended worship, tithed, in a Bible study group such as Sunday School, a small group or a community group. Many times even when we share what we are going to “follow” Christ, we are boasting and bragging, not being humble. 

Assignment: So, each week what religious rituals do you do that pride may be the main motivator and not following Christ. Where in your life are you not following Christ? Where in your life do you think that religious rules, rituals and regulations give you a sense of following Christ? We do not need just new habits; we need a new heart. We do not need more litanies, we need the Lord. We do not need more community; we need Christ. What do you think?

Scripture To Meditate On: John 12:26, Jesus says, “Anyone who wants to serve Me must follow Me, because My servants must be where I am. And the Father will honor anyone who serves Me” (NLT).

Prayer To Pray: “Dear Lord, please forgive me when I let pride swell up in my commitment to religious rituals. Lord, I know I should read Your Word daily, I should pray in faith daily, I should be involved in a ministry to serve You. I want to follow You, not some ritual. I want my faith and hope in You, not religious observances. Lord, reveal to me now areas in my life where I am not following You whether it be in thoughts, attitudes or actions. I believe that the road to life and spiritual life is through the road of death of myself and taking up my cross daily so that I can and will follow You. I love You Lord. In Jesus’ name, Amen!”

I love you Southside! – Pastor Kelly