Religion

There is a cool verse in the Scriptures, at Isaiah 29:13. The Lord says, "These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men."

There are 3 reasons I think this verse is incredible.

1. Jesus quoted it. See Mark 7.
2. Jesus quoted it in the context of religious leaders who burdened adherents with rules wrongly derived and cruelly manipulated from the original Scriptural principles. Seriously, see Mark 7.
3. Religious leaders today read the same verse in Isaiah, read the same application in Mark, and still go right on ruling over followers of Christ with arbitrary rules and opinions elevated to the level of doctrine. They have become as twisted and sick as the very people Jesus slapped down in Mark 7 . . . but they do not see it. They are more interested in rightness and rules and observances and their own authority than in loving.

They are in peril.

And so are you if you sit idly and do not challenge this establishment of man's religion falsely claiming the will of God.