If the above sentence makes you uncomfortable, this message is probably for you. Somewhere in the 1970s, the phrase “Christianity is not a religion, it’s a relationship” became popular, especially within American evangelical circles, as a response to the legalistic nature of organized faith traditions that many were trying to move away from. The intention was good. It aimed to highlight the personal nature of walking with God and to make the way of Jesus more appealing to someone who might be closed off. But over time, it’s led to an oversimplified view of Christianity that downplays the role of things like church, discipline, tradition, and spiritual formation. In trying to avoid legalism, we may have turned the Christian life into a flimsy, watered-down caricature of what Jesus laid out for us.
One of the problems with framing Christianity as just a relationship is that everyone defines “healthy relationship” differently. For many, relationships are primarily feeling-based. As long as I feel close to God, then it's not about any of the “religious stuff.” And when I don’t feel close to Him? Then He must be distant, angry, or maybe not even real. That kind of view creates a new “God”. One made in the image of our own emotional theme parks. A god who doesn’t instruct or illuminate, but gets dragged around by whatever feeling happens to be strongest in the moment. It’s made accountability feel like control, and structure seem like the enemy of freedom in Christ. But a walk with God that isn’t shaped by truth, structure, and community is a walk destined to collapse. And suddenly, the massive decline in Jesus affiliation across the U.S. over the last five decades starts to make all the sense in the world. My friend Ruslan says
“Grace is free, but following Jesus is going to cost you everything.”
I think a lot of people would agree that any other relationship that costs you everything is a toxic one. Of course, we know this is not the case with Yahweh because he is all good, fully holy, and overflowing with love and mercy, so any “self-serving” aspect of God could only ever benefit those who interact with Him. Even so, He’s the God who came not to be served but to serve (Matthew 20:28). However, the advertisement that life with Jesus is fully absent from religion, presents a life that isn’t going to cost you anything aside from a little quiet time in the mornings, and church on Sundays and Tuesdays if you’re really diligent. It doesn’t help one truly count the cost before pursuing Him (Luke 14:28).
To be abundantly clear, LEGALISM absolutely needs to be pushed back on. We are not made holy by what we do for God. Paul meant what he said in his letter to the church in Galatia.
“…does God give you the Holy Spirit and work miracles among you because you obey the law? Of course not! It is because you believe the message you heard about Christ. In the same way, “Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith.” The real children of Abraham, then, are those who put their faith in God.”
Galatians 3:5-7 NLT
Obviously, the problem doesn’t lie within the Holy Spirit-inspired words of Saint Paul, the problem is how we define the word belief. The 20th century has created a brand new version of Christianity that would be completely foreign to the apostles and early followers of Jesus.Somehow, today, believing in Jesus and following him have become two separate things. The authors of the New Testament understood belief in something to be a fully embodied commitment to a practice or practices that defined how you lived your life, whereas nowadays (specifically in the context of Christianity) belief in something essentially just means to like or agree with the idea of it, and to sometimes be ready to argue it. The notion that you could be a believer in Jesus of Nazareth, but not an active disciple in His way of life, and the practices that He and the apostles taught, is at best spiritual dissonance, and at worst, a suggestion whispered from the enemy.
Practicing the Way by John Mark Comer is one of the most important books I’ve read, and if I ever somehow become the new American pope of protestantism (pray against this), I would make it required reading for every Christian. In it, John Mark outlines nine core practices that Jesus modeled during His life, not as optional extracurriculars, but as the expected shape of a disciple’s life: Sabbath, Fasting, Prayer, Scripture, Solitude, Community, Generosity, Service, and Witness. These practices formed the rhythm that Jesus and his apprentices lived by and make no mistake, they are religious practices. They’re a way of life that slowly reshapes us from the inside out. They’re how we actually follow Jesus, not just admire Him from a distance. And that kind of formation doesn’t happen by accident.
Story time.
A few years ago, a good friend of mine died of leukemia. He was a 25-year-old, newly married recording artist who was in love with Jesus. I’ve never known a person more marked by kindness and humility than my friend Tanner. His life was largely dedicated to the service of others, even people he wasn't too fond of. In 2019, after a check-up with his doctor, Tanner received a phone call that nobody could be prepared for, and he was diagnosed with cancer. I prayed every day for 4 years for the Lord to heal my friend. It seemed for a while like he was getting better, and then suddenly it all took a turn, and on Thanksgiving of 2022, Tanner died, and I was devastated. I became violently angry with God, my love for Him had seemingly evaporated, and was replaced by a fiery desire to prove him a cruel master and a terrible father. Our relationship suffered greatly.
What does this have to do with religion? It’s no exaggeration to say that the love of God is meant to be the driving force behind every sacred rhythm of our lives (1 Cor 13:1-3), but what happens when our love runs out? What happens when the only emotion we can muster toward God is indignation, and reverence is replaced with resentment? It’s not uncommon for Christians to experience seasons where friendship with God feels stale, or in my case, bitter. I had completely withdrawn from pursuing a relationship with God, but the habits that I’d built into my life continued to linger. I was still in the practice of regularly studying scripture, still going to church, still going to my community group, still practicing sabbath, still praying (in a way), but the affection was gone. It was religion alone.
During those days, I spent time in scripture to prove to myself, and then to others, the cruelty of God. Searching in Job and Exodus to find evidence of His flawed Fatherhood. In my attempt to discover his malevolence, I sat a lot with Exodus 34:6 with my focus on the second half of the revelation of Yahweh's character to Moses:
“I do not leave the guilty unpunished, I lay the sins of the father on the children to the third and fourth generation”.
I was certain that I had Him. Punishing children for things that their parents did?? That has to be cruel! Only I couldn’t get to that part without having to read the first things that God ever communicated about his character to humanity,
“Compassionate and merciful, slow to anger, and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness. I lavish unfailing love to 1000 generations. I forgive iniquity, rebellion, and sin.”
God was battling my thoughts about Him with His own.
I kept going to church because it was the rhythm that my wife and I had set for our family. Still setting up sound every Sunday. Still sitting through pre-gathering prayer. Still listening as people lifted up thanksgivings, confessing their sins, and hearing every single Sunday,
“you’re forgiven”.
I remember one Sunday in particular. Worship was happening all around me, and I was slumped in my seat, angry as ever. Then Dan, my pastor and mentor, who had been sitting up front, walked over to me, knelt down, and looked me in the eye. He said,
“Jon, listen to me. Do whatever you have to do, but you need to fight. If you need to scream at Him, then scream at Him. But don’t go away, and don’t shut down. Fight. Right now.” That day marked something for me. I wasn’t entirely sure what shifted, but something did.
At the time, I told everyone that I was “on strike” from praying, but the truth is, I was still praying; they were just ugly prayers. After that word from Dan, I began having daily explosions with God. Storms of emotion filled with cursing and screaming; violent, poisonous, accusatory prayers. But the thing is, God would rather that than shut him out and leave. There’s one moment I'll never forget. I was in my car, screaming at Him at the top of my lungs. Words that I actually couldn't even bring myself to recite now. But I remember the very moment that I had finished my tantrum, a strong sense of the presence of God filled my car like a wave. It was as if He was saying,
“All of that and I’m still here”.
I could bring stories to you all day, but what’s my point in this? If I had turned away from these rhythms because they only felt religious due to my lack of affection, I could honestly say that I would not be here writing this today. If I had put my bible away, withdrawn from church, and completely shut my prayers down, it would have been like taking a sledgehammer to the foundation of how God communicates with His people. Another way to look at it, imagine that every religious practice in the Christian walk is like a window in the house that is our soul, with sunlight being the voice of God. The practices are how a relationship with God can even happen. And even though I became furious with the Sun, I kept the windows open.
Now, does YHWH desire a relationship with His followers? Paul, John, James, and Matthew certainly thought so. The language of love, knowing, abiding, closeness, family, and reciprocity is all over the New Testament.
• “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8
• “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.” John 15:4
• “Now this is eternal life: that they know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent.” John 17:3
• “Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.” James 4:8
• “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.” Matthew 7:7–8
• “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” 1 John 3:1
• “And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. You know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.” John 14:16-17
God has spoken through countless men and women since the dawn of humanity to make one thing unmistakably clear: there is nothing that He desires more than communion with His image bearers. The thing that separates Christianity from the other faith traditions of the world is that relationship, is the result of our religious practices. Another way to put it, could you ever have a relationship with Yahweh without following Jesus? Of course not! Without practice, rhythm, obedience, and a courageous fidelity to the way of Jesus, that relationship cannot survive. My intention isn’t to paint those who prefer “relationship” language as undisciplined or lacking depth in their friendship with God. I simply want to make the case that we don’t need to rescue our faith from the word religion. Whether we use the word or not, the practices that sustain our communion with God are religious, and we should do them religiously. Religion is not the same as legalism. It’s a divinely revealed framework of habits and beliefs for how humanity relates to God. We don’t need to abandon the relational side of Christianity, we just need to stop demonizing the religious one. I truly believe that God is calling His people at large to return to the Way, to come back to what it originally meant to be a “Christian”, a little Christ. Not just believers in Jesus, but followers of Him. Not just inspired by His words, but formed by His practices. Structure is not the enemy of intimacy. It’s the habits of faith that ready the soil of our hearts for God to make something new in us
I read this post because the title unsettled me and when you said it was for “people like me,” I wanted to sit with it before responding. I’ve read, reread, and reflected.
You’re clearly contending with a distortion of Christianity that speaks of “relationship” without Lordship; light on obedience, heavy on sentiment. That does need correction.
But I don’t believe the answer is to diminish relationship in order to elevate practice. We don’t need to replace one imbalance with another. We need to recover what relationship with God truly is; as He defines it: a covenant forged by His initiation, marked by reverence,
proven in obedience, and held together not by our consistency, but by His.
You wrote that “relationship is the result of religious practice.” But in Scripture, relationship comes first.
“We love because He first loved us.”
“Remain in Me, as I also remain in you.”
Obedience doesn’t produce relationship; it flows from it.
You also referenced toxicity in relationships that cost everything. While you quickly clarified God’s goodness, the word itself is emotionally charged, and risks leaving lingering questions about the nature of surrender. The Cross isn’t toxic. It’s mercy. It’s the way.
We don’t need to abandon the relational side of Christianity to defend the reverent one. We need to let God define relationship, not culture, not emotion, not ease. Because His kind of relationship is never casual. Never one-sided. Never optional.
It’s covenant. It’s costly. And it changes everything.
Thank you for creating space for these deeper wrestles. Thank you for naming things that matter. And thank you for leaving room for others to walk the same truth, side by side.
Good word Jon!
Reminds me of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s marriage advice to his soon-to-be married niece: “It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.”
What is a river without banks? What is a tree without roots?
What is love without commitment?