by Daniel Hilliard

Created on: November 17, 2009   Last Updated: November 22, 2009

Is God relevant in today's world?

God is relevant to life, in the same way that the air we breathe is relevant to life.

The question should be restated as follows: How relevant is man-made religion in today's world?

People, the agnostics, the atheists and the non-churched are not rejecting or dismissing God, because they don't truly know Him. Instead, they are rejecting the man-made religious definitions and descriptions of God; which means they are rejecting the relevancy of who men say God is. Tit-for-tat: God made man in His image, according to His likeness; human nature or pride wants to return the favor to make God in our image, according to our likeness or human characteristics. That means, there are many different versions of God in the world; and, some versions are accepted, while others are rejected.

The New Testament's book of James says: Pure and undefiled religion [ceremonial observance or worship] before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, to keep oneself unspotted from the world. That means: Religion, which is personal behavior or actions, was meant to be an indication of an existing belief system about God, a relationship with God. It was not meant to be the other way around: Religion ceremonial observance or worship was not actually intended to become the very foundation of a belief system about God, the way we think of, or see, religion today. That's why religion or, really, God is often viewed in such a negative light; too often God is associated with the ceremonial or burdensome things we MUST do in life. That's backwards.

To make matters worse, the concept of our religious development, which is to say the concept of our relationship with God, is similar to the unfortunate one of our school system. In most cases, the average parent(s) has all but given full social authorization to a state run school system or even a religious based school system to educate their children. Unfortunately, this is usually done with little to no oversight from the busy (career driven or fixated on providing for the family) parent(s).

In the same manner, most churched people have all but given full mental authorization to religious or church workers to provide for, and see to, their spiritual or moral growth, while they themselves remain focused on what's really important: career status and financial security matters. Again, this is mostly done with little to no oversightpersonal reading or Biblical researchfrom the

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