Are we Following Christ or Religion?

Following religion is not the same as following Christ.

Loving religion is not the same as loving Christ!

Those who follow religion have been deceived by wolves in sheep’s clothing and are followers of man’s philosophies down the broad road that leads to spiritual destruction and have defiled themselves with religious harlots.

Religion is led by its own interpretation and understanding of the “written word” or the words of denominated seminarians, rather than being led by the “Living Word”, who by the way has never lost His ability to speak or relinquished His headship of the Community of the Redeemed. Jesus’ words are still as true today as when He spoke them in the wilderness; “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds (present tense) from the mouth of God.”

Those who follow the Spirit of Christ are like the wind and follow Him wherever He goes. They are undefiled by the harlot church and her offspring, who “made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication” (Rev. 14:8). They have not been defiled religion’s harlotry into following the ideologies of carnal man's fables whose cups are full of the blood of saints. The followers of Christ...the Community of the Redeemed... are led by Christ’s life within, they are the Lamb’s wife! Where the Lamb goes, His wife is at His side.

How do religion defile the Community of the Redeemed?

William Law born in1687 puts it this way.
“But Christians, seeking and turning to anything else, but to be led and inspired by the one Spirit of God and Christ, will bring forth a Christendom that in the sight of God will have no other name, than spiritual Babylon, a spiritual Egypt, and Sodom, a scarlet whore, a devouring beast, and red dragon. For all these names belong to all men, however learned, and to all churches, whether greater or less, in which the spirit of those world has any share of power. This was the fall of the whole church soon after the apostolic ages; and all human reformations, begun by ecclesiastical learning, and supported by civil power, will signify little or nothing, nay often make things worse, till all churches dying to all own will, all own wisdom, all own advancement, seek for no reforming power but from the Spirit of God which converted sinners, publicans, harlots, Jews and heathens, into a holy apostolical church at the first, a church which knew they were of God, by the Spirit which He had given them and which worked in them.”

The book of Hebrews issues a sobering admonition,
“Be careful not to refuse Him (Jesus) who is speaking to you. For if they of old suffered because of listening to man instead of listening to Him who spoke on earth, much less will we escape deception if we refuse to listen to Him who now speaks from heaven.

In John four we see the stark contrast of walking in the Spirit of Truth cast against walking the limitations of carnal religion, traditions and interpretations of the scripture by men. The Spirit of Truth brings life wherever He goes. Religion has not the power of truth to bring life, it brings spiritual death.

It is an abomination that religious men have codified many of the words of Christ and the apostles into denominated doctrines, rules and regulations that have become dead letters. The Jews took the words of Moses and the prophets that pointed the way to the living waters of the Spirit and the Messiah and got hung-up on interpretations of the letter. Religious leaders have studied man’s interpretation of the scripture and in doing so and misunderstand the  Christ their Fountain of Living Waters. Instead, they have hewed out for themselves broken cisterns that can hold no spiritual water.