The Religious Never Get It

Jesus replied,“Your mistake is that you don’t know the Scriptures, and you don’t know the power of God.
‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ So he is the God of the living, not the dead.”
I had and still do struggle with a particular area of pride.  Karen and I got married right out of high school.  My scholarship paid for our rent and I also got a job working at the physical plant.  We were able to apply Karen’s work study income to bills and food also.  We saved and bought our first car.  Everything we did was from our work and saving from the day we got married to today.  We “bootstrapped” our way to where we are.  As I type this I am almost pounding my chest with pride.  That’s a severe level of pride in self-sufficiency.  Not a good thing.
The Sadducees were also extremely self-sufficient.  They denied God’s involvement in their lives.  Life was all on them so I am certain that they also experienced bootstrapped pride.  Their self-sufficient pride did go beyond mine.  They denied God’s involvement, his blessing in everyday life.  The Sadducees didn’t look for God in the everyday.  This life of self-sufficiency and pride is life completely independent of the spirit.  This is the life of the natural man.  Paul tells us of the thoughts of the natural man (1 Corinthians 2:14) and if we think and walk as natural men we will not understand the things of the Spirit.  Self-sufficient men don’t walk in the Spirit.  They walk in religion with the mindset of the dead.
The Sadducees didn’t get it and if I walk in the life and mind of the natural man I don’t get it either.  The mind focused on what we experience and see is dead.  The bootstrapped mind is dead.  The mind focused on the Spirit, not the natural, is renewed and alive.  Religion is of the natural man.  It is the bootstrapped approach to the spirit.  Thus, it doesn’t work.  Religion manufactures pride.  Religion makes perfect sense to the natural mind.  God must require work from me for Him to receive me.  I must have to bootstrap myself to God.  The natural mind doesn’t get it.  Those who rely upon their effort.  The religious are of the natural mind.  The natural man. The religious never get it.  
  1. Are you self-sufficient?
  2. Do you try to bootstrap your approach to God?

--Zine Smith

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