The Religious Mindset Cannot Please God

The religious mindset cannot please God
because it does not submit to God. It cannot subject itself to the
guidance of the Holy Spirit and that is why religious people do not
follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We need to get rid of our
religious mindset and be willing to trust and follow the guidance of
the Holy Spirit.

In this regard I want to ask you to go
and read Acts chapter 10 about the Italian a Centurion and Peter. The
Italian Centurion feared God and he sought the will of God and
therefore God sent an angel to come and tell him to go and look for a
man called Peter who was in Joppa and to fetch him to his house which
he also did. But at the same time Peter was praying on the roof of
the house where he lived in, and he had a vision. He became a very
hungry and from heaven came a sheet with all kinds of animals on it
and a voice said to him "Slaughter and eat." This happened
three times. now Peter was a devout Jew and he would not eat anything
that was unholy. Some animals like pigs are unholy for the Jews but
the voice told him to slaughter and eat everything. So he understood
that this was a message from God. He was still very perplexed about
this vision when the men from Cornelius came and knocked on the door
and when Peter went down and saw the and heard what they told him
that Cornelius wanted him to come to his house, that he who was a Jew
who had no communion with other nations was called by God, instructed
by God to go to the house of Cornelius, which he did.

So the next morning they set out and
came to the house of Cornelius who had brought together all his
friends and family to come and listen to Peter, and Peter who would
normally not have preached the gospel to Gentiles, he preached the
gospel of Jesus Christ to them and while they were listening the Holy
Spirit came on them, and they started speaking in tongues just like
Peter and the others did on the day of Pentecost. So Peter baptized
them in water, which otherwise he would not have done because
salvation is from the Jews and even though Jesus commanded the
disciples to go into all the world and preach the gospel to all
nations, they were still reluctant to preach to other nations. When
Peter got back to Jerusalem he had to explain to the other Jewish
disciples why he had baptized Gentiles because they themselves had a
religious mindset. They did not understand that it was about doing
the will of God and not about being religious.

The religious mindset prevents us from
doing the will of God. Many people are religious and they act
according to religious rules, they act according to what they've read
in the Bible and their understanding of it but because they do not
follow guidance of the Holy Spirit, they do not, and they cannot
please God. We see here that Peter obeyed the guidance of the Holy
Spirit. He did what the Holy Spirit told him to do. He went to
gentiles which he otherwise would not have done and he went into
their house which is not proper for a Jewish man to do. He shared the
gospel with them because the Holy Spirit told him to do so. The Holy
Spirit confirmed the message of the kingdom by baptizing and these
Gentiles in the Holy Spirit, the very same as He did the disciples
who were Jewish, and Peter therefore baptized them in water which
otherwise he would not have done.

The religious mindset cannot please
God. We need to be led by the Holy Spirit and not by our religious
mindset. If we do not follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit we
cannot please Jesus Christ and that is why many Christians, many
believers perform dead works, they are not doing the will of God
because they are not following the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Those
who are being led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God,
they do the will of God. They do not follow after the religious
mindset or their own interpretation of the Bible, or even their own
mind. They listen to, follow and obey the Holy Spirit.

Are we just religious? Do we have a
religious mindset or are we led by the Holy Spirit? Are we truly sons
of God? Are we children of God who follow the guidance of the Holy
Spirit?

May Jesus bless you.