No More Left to Pay

"Come Lord Jesus, be our guest and let your gifts to us be blessed. Amen"-Our family said this prayer before meals when I was growing up. I never liked it because it seemed fake, and especially with our monotoned voices.
Religion: Duty bound repetitive actions which lose their meaning overtime. The more one does these actions the closer they think they get to God, and the more they think He approves of Him. This is my definition.
I think religion makes God sick. Like the strange fire, and the lips of praise, and the rituals of men of old, they are a stench in His nostrils, because "their hearts were far from Him." They played with the things of God, but He never knew them.
Brothers and sisters, His heart's desire is that you know Him and draw close to Him, not to "do" anything to try and prove your worthiness in His sight. He's already provided for that on the cross. If you have truly come to Him and received what He has done for you, then His love is there for you to embrace. Going through routines and rituals to try and get closer only shows you either don't understand what He has done, or you haven't received His salvation yet. And if you stop doing your rituals and then feel like you are not close to Him then, it's only because the ritual was only providing a false sense of closeness. It was a delusion.
To let His love permeate your being by receiving it, is what He wants from us. He wants us to see that He has done everything for us.
A hymn I used to sing growing up went like this:


"No merit of my own I claim, but solely lean on Jesus' name.
On Christ the solid Rock I stand; all other ground is sinking sand."


Building our house upon the Rock is the only foundation that will stand. Religion and rituals will not save you and will not get you one step closer to God. Only He will. Still, He says, "Come."