What does it mean to be Spiritual?

Made for spirituality, we wallow in introspection. Made for joy, we settle for pleasure. Made for justice, we clamour for vengeance. Made for relationship, we insist on our own way. Made for beauty, we are satisfied with sentiment. But new creation has already begun. The sun has begun to rise.

Christians are called to leave behind, in the tomb of Jesus Christ, all that belongs to the brokenness and incompleteness of the present world … That, quite simply, is what it means to be Christian: to follow Jesus Christ into the new world, God’s new world, which he has thrown open before us.

“Those in whom the Spirit comes to live are God’s new Temple. They are, individually and corporately, places where heaven and earth meet.”  N.T. Wright, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense

The other side of religion

“Religion can make people mean, angry, gloomy, critical, judgemental and neurotic. Religion can also become an abuser of Christians.

I have seen so many people hurt by religion that sometimes I think it would be better to be a pagan. Worst of all, religion can keep you from God. It can become the substitute ~ and not a very good one ~ for a relationship with God Himself.

Something about institutional Christianity (as necessary as it is) will kill your freedom if you aren’t careful. 

Whenever a new Christian comes into the church I wince a bit, because I’m afraid that they will get the ‘religion disease’, that the ‘church virus’ will kill off the joy and freedom Jesus purchased on the cross to give them.”    Steve Brown