by Michael Parkinson, Keighley Parish

I HATE the word religion!

It is a word that for centuries has been used as a label by men (and women!), tribes and whole nations, to justify the most horrible ideas and actions which are totally opposed to the intention which God our creator intended for his beautiful world.

The bible teaches us that the time will come when mankind will “hold on to the outward form of religion but deny the power that lies within it”.

God declared his world to be not just “good”, but to be “very good”!

That is the same God who loves his world so much that he sent his only Son, Jesus, to take our punishment for those evil ideas and actions (sins) that we, mankind, are responsible for, so often under that name of religion.

Real religion is all to do with acknowledging the God who is love, and then accepting, by faith, what he has done for us by his amazing act of love.

God’s love is indeed so great as to be truly beyond our understanding.

The power that lies within real religion is that power of the love of God.

A love that is so deep, so personal, and so utterly selfless.

It is that love which is the only answer to the evils of the world in which we live.

The love which is embodied in the very name of Jesus.

So let us not practice the kind of religion which depends on rituals which can themselves become objects of worship in themselves.

Instead, let us seek to accept, by faith, the kind of love which is beyond our understanding, and which only God can grant to us.

Then we will be able to experience true religion, the religion which we will have no cause to hate!