I hate what organized religion does to people. I hate how people turn into spineless puppets to defend a man-made system and lose their love of other individuals. I hate how individuals become objects to manipulate and control.

I hate how organized religion lays heavy burdens on already sagging shoulders, shoulders who need the promised lighter yoke. But the yoke which lowers across them also lowers their head, and, burdened, they cannot look up into the welcoming face of Jesus.

I hate how religion stops at nothing to achieve her end goal: control. She crushes the bruised reed and breaks in half the charred staff.

Religion is a mistress that the Church has accepted unquestioningly. She has stolen the place of the beautiful bride, the Church, and she did not have to fight her way in; she was welcomed. Her unspotted garments are not clean with the cleansing of Christ, but rather, the laborious scrubbing of a million good works. Works, which presented to a saddened Christ, are as filthy rags.

Mistress Religion hungers for the pain of others. When her influence is upon a person, she drives the person to manipulation, accusation, gaslighting, and other methods of mental anguish against others. Her appetite must be fed at the banquet of others’ expense. She knows nothing of the sacrificial love of Jesus. An individual within her grip begins to receive her personality, which, even in a sinner, is a downgrade.

Once you have identified the spirit of religion operating within a person, you will be able to identify the personality changes that will gradually take over the person; a pre-occupation with appearance, performance, expectations, and especially, a love for condemning others who do not meet some religious code.

When the adulterous spirit of religion is identified and insulted, she will flame with anger, rear back, and spit in your face. Clawing her opponent into slanderous shreds is a frequent recourse. There is no mercy, no compassion, no deference to be gentle and lowly. She is a shark circling the waters, sniffing for vulnerability, biting with condemnation. These individuals operating under her influence receive a subversive pleasure in the condemnation of others.

Religion is a mistress that the Church has accepted unquestioningly.

Lucifer and Ms. Religion share the sheets. They are not unalike. They both dress as angels of light, dazzling to behold. But beneath their outward appearance, a stony heart of rebellion is at their core. “I will do it my way,” he said one day, and a third of heaven fell with him. “I will do it my way,” she said; and more than a third of all Christians followed her.

Individuals afflicted by her persona tend to believe they are God’s gift to mankind, the bearers of exclusive truth, and all other so-called Christians are not quite as worthy as they. Others are sub-par. In fact, others are optional. They are it. No other dimension of truth or revelation is acceptable. Father God may say He loves all His children the same, but He stays up late reading extra bedtime stories to them, His favored.

The spirit of religion has no acceptable place at the table of Christ. She is a child of the devil, an enemy of God, and a well-disguised faux of righteousness. Her fruits are control, fear, manipulation, all manner of mind games, conditional acceptance. She pairs well with legalism and extra-biblical requirements.

Mistress Religion will blind Christians to their need for dependance on God and on the necessity of charitable love for others. The voice of the Shepherd is gentle and tender, calming, inviting, requesting. She demands. She insists. She has no patience for grace or growth. It must be right now, get your act together right now, because Jesus could return, and you wouldn’t want to go to hell, would you? And with another fear laced dart, she secures another frantic fear-driven Christian into her nefarious fold. If you would have looked up before you scurried across her threshold, you could have seen the tiny motto above the door: “Self-Saved Christians.”

A graceless Christianity, a loveless church, an exhausted mind: when will you reject the false adulteress hand you hold? When did you lose step with Christ and take up the all-too-willing hand of Mistress Religion? Repent and renounce, cast her roots from your life. But be prepared; she is the worst of the backstabbers and without the cross of Jesus between you and her, she has circled back for your destruction. You cannot walk without injury unless you cling to His cross. It is there He will hold you to His heart while she rages murderous accusations, but you will rest with a piece that passes all understanding. You may be wounded by her lancet, but never destroyed, as long as you cling with total reliance to your Lord.