The great peril of any religious life is the naturally produced conflict between rules and relationships. That conflict occurs when our focus becomes primarily the living of religion, attending mostly to the outwardness of faith, to the fulfilling of commandments. It is then that religion can becomes its own religion, it can become what we worship, believing that the satisfying of the processes and requirements of our faith are what will justify us. The rules of any faith are the means to an end, not the sole qualifications. Religion, and the practice of religion, is a vehicle, a catalyst, a foundation designed to facilitate a very authentic change in us, in our nature, in our very behavior. The underpinning of that change is when relationships become the reason for obedience and action, not the blessings and consequences of the rules.

The great peril of any religious life is the naturally produced conflict between rules and relationships. That conflict occurs when our focus becomes primarily the living of religion, attending mostly to the outwardness of faith, to the fulfilling of commandments. It is then that religion can becomes its own religion, it can become what we worship, believing that the satisfying of the processes and requirements of our faith are what will justify us. The rules of any faith are the means to an end, not the sole qualifications. Religion, and the practice of religion, is a vehicle, a catalyst, a foundation designed to facilitate a very authentic change in us, in our nature, in our very behavior. The underpinning of that change is when relationships become the reason for obedience and action, not the blessings and consequences of the rules.