In my last post, I mentioned how "my family is Christian. We love Jesus, we aren't religious." Here I am explaining that comment to you. Bare with me. I know the title "Christian" gets a bad rep, just like a lot of beliefs of faith. I cannot speak for other forms of faith because I have chosen to put my faith in Jesus Christ of the Bible, but I want to shed some light on why my faith is not a religion.

Now I can get into the philosophy of human nature and our ideas of good and bad, morals and ethics. I can get into the debate about how the universe was formed. I can talk about heaven and hell, afterlife stuff. I can talk about science and the Bible. I can talk about a bunch of controversy things. That is what happens when you talk about religion, right?

I don't know about you, but I am not a huge fan of controversy. So this is how I am going to share what I believe. Take it or leave it. I am not asking you to convert. I am not trying to save you. I just want you to keep reading.

Whenever I make a new friend that I love a lot, I want them to meet the other friends that I love. I want my friends I already have to enjoy this amazing person that I met. As selfish as I want to be sometimes with my friends, I enjoy having all the people I love around me. That's the way I feel about my faith.

I grew up knowing who Jesus is. I grew up with Bible stories and going to Sunday school and church. I was "brainwashed" in the Christian religion as some would call it. But you cannot force a belief on people. Eventually, I had to make the choice to make my parent's faith my own.

Some people call Jesus a great man. Some people call him a great prophet. Some people think he was just a crazy nut. Some people call him the Messiah. Some people call him the son of God. I call Jesus my best friend.

I find religion to be a harsh word. It always made me think of a system with a bunch of rules and regulations. It was a way to live a "good life". It was a way to "better yourself". There is little room for love in religion. There is little room for grace in religion. It is like a never ending ladder you have to climb up and you are not even sure where it leads.

I titled this "Religion vs Jesus," but really it is Religion vs a Relationship. If my friend asked me to do something, that of course was reasonable and not harmful to myself, I would do it because I love them. The Bible has "rules" in it. These rules were not created to suck the fun out of life. They were created to protect us. Parents have rules. We do not call obeying our parents being religious. The United States has laws. We do not call following the rules of the U.S. being religious.

Some people interpret the rules of the Bible stricter than others. Free will and human nature give us the choice to interpret a lot of things. Think about how many books of literature you have analyzed in high school where you had to pretend to know what the author was talking about. Let's face it English teachers, you do not know what Shakespeare was really trying to say even if you pretend like you do. The color of the blinds was not chosen to set the mood of the scene, it was just the author's favorite color. Okay, I have had my fun. Seriously now.

I love Jesus. We have a relationship just like I have with another human being. Yes, I fail at keeping up with Jesus almost as much as I sometimes forget to keep up with my other friends. Just like I would bring up a friend in conversation, I like to bring up Jesus in a conversation. I thank him for the good things in my life. I thank him for the bad things in my life. Because unlike a normal friend, he never disappoints me. He has never rejected me or not wanted to spend time with me. He has never judged me for doing wrong towards him or other people he loves.

Yes, there are a lot of things that are hard to understand and hard to explain about God. Why is Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit all one person? How is God everywhere? Why would God allow bad things to happen? Why is God so judgmental? Why would God allow people to go to hell?

These are great questions. I do not have all the answers, but I have some of them. I am still getting to know my best friend. Jesus is kind of complicated but in a simple way. He provides everything my earthly body craves that cannot be satisfied by earthly things.

You may think I'm crazy for believing in Jesus, but I think humans were created to believe in something. You cannot disprove that there is a God just like I cannot force you to believe there is one. All I ask is that you think about it. Try talking to him. It won't hurt you to have a little faith.

Here is a YouTube video that talks about Religion vs Jesus if my post was not enough for you. Enjoy!