The Peril Of Religion

The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, “God, I thank you that I am not like other men—extorters, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector.”

Luke 18:11

One of the terrible possibilities suggested by the Pharisee’s attitude in prayer is this: a person can be religious and not be right. This man’s religion became the cause of his ruin. He did everything right from a religious perspective—in fact, more than right! His problem was that he had totally excluded God from the picture of his life. His religion was all about him.

Every Sunday, people attend houses of worship with other worshipers. They sing hymns, recite liturgies, pray prayers, listen to sermons. And they will leave feeling better about themselves than when they went in. Unfortunately, they will still be deeply rooted in their sins. If our religion does nothing more than make us feel better about our sin, then that religion has doomed us, not saved us.

The Pharisee was a religious man who was lost in his religion. Along with everything else we learn in this story, we learn about the dangers of religious pride. And that doesn’t mean we are to go to a church where we leave feeling bad. It means we are to leave feeling good about the Savior whose mercy has saved us from our sins. We leave feeling good about God’s justification, not our own.