How you respond to crisis often times revile whether you have a relationship with God or not. When the pressure is on what comes out, love and trust or legalism and religion.
Recently I experienced the difference in a very profound way.

Lourdes and her husband were in a horrible car wreck. Her husband almost bled to death, her two-year-old baby girl was killed and she was declared brain dead when she arrived at the hospital.

I went to Lourdes’ hospital room believing God for a miracle and her family went to a funeral parlor to make arrangements for her death. They actually purchased her coffin.

The differences between religion and relation were never so clear to me. Her parents, like many religious Christians, were responding to crisis by agreeing with the devil instead of with God. Instead of confronting death her friends and family accepting it as if it was from God.

Religion doesn’t resist the devil rather it justifies demonic acts as ‘coming from’ or ‘being approved of’ by God. Religion destroys our resolve to fight because it complicates the will of God to the point where we no longer understand it. It becomes something that defies logic.

The religious elite tells us that God’s ways are not always our ways and that sometimes means illness, accidents and even premature death. But that is not what the Bible says, rather it says His ways are higher, more loving and forgiving than our ways (Isa. 55:7-9)

The problem with religious people is that they do not understand what it means when God gives His word. He cannot break His word like men do (Heb.6:18). For instance God said, “Do not kill” (Ex.20:17). If He could kill why didn’t He just kill the devil and all of his demons? Why didn’t God kill Adam and Eve and just start over or why doesn’t God just kill people that reject Him instead of sending them to hell?

The answer is: God gives life not death (Mat. 10:10). He cannot give something he does not have.

I know religion goes crazy with this recalling all of the times were God ‘killed’ people. Unfortunately that is simply not true. In every case people rebelled against the word of God choosing death over life just like Adam and Eve did. When that happened the destroyer moved in for the kill (I Cor. 10:10).

Religion is death because it separates us from the love of God with ridged rules and rituals. Relationship on the other hand is life because it communicates with God. It is not complicated to know the will of God in any situation. Anything that interrupts communication with God and life is not from Him. Hunger, illness, poverty and confusion all lead to death and away from God. Faith understands ‘God’s will’ is always abundant life. Faith acts on that knowledge. We are told by God to resist the devil because every thing in his bag of tricks is meant to separate us from God.

Lourdes was released from the hospital just two weeks after her accident. Today Lourdes’ empty coffin is a testimony to the goodness of God and the trust we can have in His word. “If we can only believe, God’s word, all things are possible (Mark 9:23).

Rocky J. Malloy