LIFE AFTER RELIGION
New Covenant disciples are constantly challenged to disassociate with religious organizations that demand (more or less) conformance to certain traditions (clothing, jewelry, worship posture, tithes, behaviors, etc.) in order to maintain security and acceptance by people in the institution. When they recognize that religion is sin and reject following religious rules, they, in effect, shed the religious clothes and behaviors that they previously employed to display their spirituality. Concurrently they will effectively terminate their associations with religious institutions and leaders in which they have placed their trust. They will then become outsiders instead of insiders. This will be very hard to do but there will be great rewards for those who do the hard thing.
People who have a hard time making this transition indicate that they are dependent on a religious institution. They are not willing to suffer the consequences of being different. Religious leaders have an even tougher challenge because they are addicted to the honorific deference and income they receive from people who do not understand what it means to be spiritual.
Bottom line is that no one ever know how addicted they are to religion until they try to live without it.
Those who dare to disassociate from religious organizations are ready to repent for acting contrary to God’s commands. Indeed, they were deceived into following traditions of men, but they are still responsible for their own decisions.
It is helpful to recall that in the process of being delivered from Egypt, Israel was told to remove its adornments. And elsewhere, the wearing of adornments is equated with adultery. Maybe they were not totally conscious of the fact that you wore the clothing and engaged in the behaviors, but they are still responsible for the fact that they did these things so that you would be attractive (as a spiritual person) to others and so that you can be proud of your spirituality. That is how God sees it, and that is how they must come to see their actions also. If they cannot shed their adornments, they must deal with the fact that they are addicted to them, and dependent on them for their good standing within their personal religious community. In other words, they desire the praise of men more than they desire the praise of God.
People who do suffer this radical change in their life will feel a little (or a lot) lonely for a while. People whom they thought were their good friends will reject and even persecute them, and they won’t know what to do without all the religious activity that previously occupied their life. They should be comforted, however, knowing that persecution is exactly what the Bible predicted would happen to New Covenant disciples who choose to be a friend of God instead of his enemy.