I grew up in church. Same Pew every Sunday. Potlucks. Long prayers. I know the inside of a sanctuary the way some kids know the layout of their favorite video game.

And I can tell you firsthand: religion will not save you.

I’m not saying that to be provocative. I’m saying it because I lived it. Fifteen years of religious exposure, and I walked into my forties empty, addicted, and convinced God had given up on me. The building didn’t hold me. The rituals didn’t transform me. The religious system I grew up in gave me all the vocabulary of faith and none of the power.

Why “Religious” Isn’t the Flex We Think It Is

Here’s something that has always stuck with me with me when I actually started reading my Bible instead of just hearing it read at me: the people who killed Jesus? They were the “religious” ones.

Not the Romans. Not the pagans.

The people who knew the Scriptures, kept the traditions, and guarded the temple. Jesus didn’t reserve His harshest words for the sexually broken or the tax collectors. He saved them for the people who looked holy on the outside and were rotting on the inside.

Jesus called them out on something called ‘Corban’. A religious loophole where they could dedicate their money to God and then refuse to help their aging parents because their money was “consecrated.’ 

Think about that. They invented a rule that let them look holy while actively disobeying the command to honor their father and mother. We do the same thing. ‘I can’t help you, I have church tonight.’ ‘I’d love to sit with you in your pain, but I’m leading a bible study group.’ We use religious activity to excuse ourselves from actual love. 

He even warned that one day, “many” would show up saying, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?” And He’ll just look at them, religious people doing religious things, and say, “I never knew you.”

That sentence haunted me. Because I knew how to do religious things. I just didn’t know if I was known.

The Six Months That Changed Everything:

When I hit forty one, broken and desperate, I didn’t go looking for a church. I didn’t find a pastor to lay hands on me. There was no worship service to “set the mood.” No deliverance ministry. No program.

Just me, alone on a Wednesday, crying out to a God I wasn’t even sure wanted me.

And He showed up.

Instantly, supernaturally, God delivered me from sexual addiction. He rewired how I thought. Not through a formula. Not through a class or with a professional. Through His Word and His Spirit, as I sat in my living room reading the Bible and doing what it said.

For the following six months, I didn’t set foot in a church building. No Bible study. No small group. Just streaming a service on Sunday, reading my Bible daily, and praying without any real outline or religious structure. And in that time, God changed me more than fifteen years of sitting in church ever had.

I am not saying this to bash the church. I am saying this because I need you to understand: what saved me wasn’t a system. It was a Person.

The Vocabulary Problem: What “Religion” Actually Means

When some of my friends say things like, “your religion vs. my religion,” I get why they say it. But I also know something they don’t. The word “religion” we throw around today? It’s not even in the Bible the way we use it currently.

The Greek word is thréskeia; and it specifically refers to the outward, ceremonial, ritual side of faith. The stuff you can see. The stuff you can measure.

James uses that word twice. Once to describe a “worthless” religion; the kind where people talk a big game but can’t control their tongue. And once to define “pure and undefiled religion”, caring for the vulnerable and staying unstained from the world.

But here’s what’s interesting: the New Testament uses other words for what I experienced. Eusebeia: godliness, internal devotion. Pistis: faith, trust, reliance. Dikaiosynē: righteousness, right relationships.

The early believers didn’t walk around saying, “Hey, how’s your thréskeia doing?” They talked about faith. About being known. About the Spirit changing them from the inside out.

The “But Wait” Moment…Because God Does Love Order

Now, before you think I’m advocating for Lone Ranger Christianity, let me finish the story.

After those six months, God did lead me to find a physical church. And here’s the part that still makes me laugh: it was not the church I would have picked. At all. In fact when I was looking at local churches, I skipped over this particular one. But He brought it back to my attention again a while later, and I knew it was His pick.

And it has been exactly right. I’ve become part of an amazing body that teaches me solid biblical truths as I walk this out. They have welcomed me without hesitation.

Because here’s the thing: God is a God of order. The Old Testament is full of structure. Ordinances, rituals, laws; all designed to point toward the Messiah. The New Testament churches had leadership, governance, elders, structure. God doesn’t hate organization. He hates performance that masquerades as relationship.

The distinction was never “organized vs. disorganized.” It was always “grace-based vs. works-based.” “being vs. performing.”

Where I Land

So no. I don’t consider myself religious.

I am someone who encountered God.

I am someone who has the Holy Spirit in my heart.

I am someone who pursues a life of repentance and humility daily as I seek His will and learn who He truly created me to be.

I write this because I truly find that a lot of people don’t know the origins of our modern understanding of religion. Or know how the Bible actually talks about it. And honestly? It helps me. When my friends say “your religion” and I say “I don’t really consider myself religious,” I’m not being pedantic. I’m not playing word games.

I’m telling them: I tried that. For fifteen years. And it couldn’t save me. But Jesus could. And did.

If you’re reading this and you’re exhausted from the religious treadmill; the trying, the performing, the hiding, the Sunday mask, let me tell you something I wish someone had told me thirty years ago:

You don’t need more religion.

You need more Jesus.

And the good news? He’s not hiding. He’s not waiting for you to get your act together. He’s right there, in your living room, in your car, in your mess. He’s waiting for you to stop performing and start being real.

The religious system might not know what to do with you.

But the One who died for you? He knows exactly where you are.

And He’s not saying, “Try harder.”

He’s saying, “I never left. I’ve been here the whole time.”