We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Rules!

August 19, 2025July 18, 2025 / Mark Brady / Leave a comment

When I was a little boy, I didn’t understand why the school cafeteria always served fish sticks on Fridays. As I got older, I learned it was because people who followed the Catholic faith couldn’t eat meat on Fridays. I don’t mean any disrespect, but what in the world does that “rule” have to do with accepting Jesus Christ and having your sins forgiven?

I have read the Bible several times and from different versions, and I have never seen that “rule” in the Word of God. And for that matter, I have never seen that we had to go to a man to confess our sins, but rather we could go to God himself. And nowhere did I read that when we pray, we have to face East. (Some people, directionally challenged, might find that one difficult.)

Again, I don’t mean any disrespect, but isn’t it obvious that these and other “rules” are man-made? I kind of get it, some feel they need to “do” something to “earn” their way into heaven. As if they can be “good” enough to deserve heaven. The truth is, they can never be “good” enough or “do” enough to get into heaven. There is only one way into heaven, and I stated earlier that is by asking Jesus Christ to forgive you of your sins, wrongdoings, and to ask Him into your life, thus foregoing the “rules” and starting a “relationship” with God.

I have heard that “religion” (rules) is man’s way to God, but God’s way to man is through his Son, Jesus (relationship).

Some may say, “Wait a minute, Christianity is full of rules.” No, it’s not. Christianity is a lifestyle. A way to live that is based in love. Loving God first and then loving others as you love yourself. Christianity is freedom. Walking with God and talking to him anytime you want to. Just like He intended, and the way things started out with Adam and Eve.

If you haven’t tried living life God’s way, then what are you waiting for? What are you afraid will happen? You are only delaying real life, true living, so forget the “rules” and start walking with God. You’ll love it, you’ll love Him, and you will love others.

“This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of that person’s failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him. John 3:16-18 (MSG)

Jesus said, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.’ This is the most important, the first on any list. But there is a second to set alongside it: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ These two commands are pegs; everything in God’s Law and the Prophets hangs from them.” Mat. 22:37-40 (MSG)

My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn’t know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can’t know him if you don’t love. This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God. 1 John 4:7-10 (MSG)

But Peter and the apostles replied, “We must obey God rather than any human authority.
Acts 5:29 (NLT)

You Have Everything Drawkcab

March 14, 2025March 6, 2025 / Mark Brady / Leave a comment

^13-14The Master said:
“These people make a big show of saying the right thing,
    but their hearts aren’t in it.
Because they act like they’re worshiping me
    but don’t mean it,
I’m going to step in and shock them awake,
    astonish them, stand them on their ears.
The wise ones who had it all figured out
    will be exposed as fools.
The smart people who thought they knew everything
    will turn out to know nothing.”

^15-16Doom to you! You pretend to have the inside track.
    You shut God out and work behind the scenes,
Plotting the future as if you knew everything,
    acting mysterious, never showing your hand.
You have everything backward!
    You treat the potter as a lump of clay.
Does a book say to its author,
    “He didn’t write a word of me”?
Does a meal say to the woman who cooked it,
    “She had nothing to do with this”? Isa. 29:13-16 (MSG)

Don’t be someone who gets their relationship with God drawkcab (backward). Know your place. Never forget who the Master is. I have come across some who get it wrong, and the result is they hurt people! And the worst part of it is they don’t realize it or ever admit it. It really is a sad sight to behold. If you do meet one, all you can do is pray for them because experience has taught me that they won’t listen.

When

January 8, 2020December 24, 2019 / Mark Brady / Leave a comment

Charlie 221 When people are in your presence,

May they feel, the presence of God.

God is Not Religious

May 18, 2019 / Mark Brady / 1 Comment

Charlie 230 Satan is religious. He loves churches that try to get you to follow a list of dos and don’ts knowing when you fail, you will probably hate yourself and possibly hate God. Satan religiously tries to get you to believe the lie that you have to follow a list of rules. The problem is simple: you are trusting man to tell you what God desires from you instead of finding out for yourself.

If God wanted us to be religious, he would have not sent his Son, Jesus to be a perfect sacrifice for our sins, but instead would have stayed in the temple, behind a curtain. When Jesus died that curtain ripped from top to bottom. God doesn’t want religion from us, but a relationship with us.

When you get to know God for yourself, you’ll fall in love with him, and because you don’t want to hurt the One you love, you change your behavior. Even if you slip up, out of love He forgives, comforts, encourages, and helps you. This paradigm is a much better way to live.

A friend once said he didn’t have a relationship with God. I said, “Sure you do! It’s just not a good one.” Everyone has a relationship with God. He loves you, and if you haven’t talked to him in a while, then I’m sure he misses you! God knows where you are, what you are going through, and he still knows your name. Can you hear him whispering it?