Is our Faith Dependent on the Bible instead of Christ!

Because people’s entire faith is in the Bible instead of Christ they base the status of their relationship with Christ by how much time they spend reading their Bible and doing other religious disciplines. They always feel guilty for not studying it every day of their life or they feel justified because they spent a lot of time doing the disciplines.. They think that God is upset with them for not reading the Bible more or praying more and id pleased if they spend a lot of time doing it. The cycle goes on and on until it becomes a permanent snare in their relationship. The looming shadow of performance based Christianity is always there to put them in their place the moment they feel a shred of confidence, contentment or joy because of grace living. What's bad about this religious mentality is that every one involved is set up for failure. We are constantly pressured to "be in the word" but we are never told how much is enough. No matter how much time we spend studying it; it's never enough. If we read it one hour, we could have read it two. If we read it eight hours, we could have read it nine. No matter what we do, we're always left feeling like we fell short. It's almost like it was set up that way in order to prevent growth of any kind in our lives and keep us feeling guilty.

The purpose of the Bible is to point us to Christ Who is LOVE in human form. But people have even taught that their relationship with Christ, now that they have received Him, is lived out through reading the Bible! Paul never said; "Oh and by the way, in about forty years from now a bunch of guys are going to write letters back and forth to each other and in about three hundred and fifty years from now those letters are going to be bound in a book, and if you don't believe it is inspired and read it everyday of your life you will never know God".

It is appalling the manipulation and oppression that has been put on people in the name of religion. The half truths and outright lies that has been promoted as Bible truths in order to coerce people to submit and serve their brand of religion. The guilt and condemnation that so many people live with because they can't keep up with the rigorous demands of an impossible system is scandalous. Some of the things we are taught about the Bible are found nowhere in the Bible; they come from a religious speculation that seeks to whittle people down to a spiritual pauper in an effort to gain control over their minds. This wonderful book is not to be used to cuff the spirits of millions of sincere hearted people who honestly want to connect with God's Heart.

What about the many people who have no bible available, are they sentenced to not knowing God? To believe so is absurd, for the people in the Bible never had a Bible, yet many of them knew God.

We can know about God from reading the Bible, but we know God through relationship and many who have had and have a relationship with God had no Bible to read.