“You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” (John 5:39-40, NIV)
There is no better place to hide from God than religion. Being religious allows you to think you’re spiritual even while you are avoiding God.
It is possible to tell yourself that you are seeking God, while what you are really doing is hiding from him. That’s what the Pharisees did. They were big on moral values and Bible study. They devoted their lives to proving what good, upright people they were, but according to Jesus, the whole thing was a massive exercise in avoiding a real encounter with God.
Much of religion is like the forest for the trees, offering life-long opportunities for hiding from God. This is Satan’s masterpiece of deception – to put people in a position where they think that they are seeking God, when what they are really doing is avoiding him.
Many people see the pervasiveness of religion in the world as evidence of how much people really want to find God. But the Bible’s perspective is that it is actually an evidence of how far we will go to avoid him.
Where do you most clearly see your own tendency to hide from God in religion?
