This people honours me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. And in vain they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.
Repent, and believe in the gospel.
Mark 7:6.7;1:15
Must we abandon and stifle the development of our personality in order to come to God and be wholly taken up with the form of a certain religion or even a sect?
Jesus Christ Himself emphatically opposed all formality. He reproached the religious leaders of His day for hindering people from coming to God. Besides, how could God, who created people with such different feelings, characters and abilities, belittle such variety?
Everyone can come to God just as he is, and that not simply to find religious rites and forms, but a living relationship with Him. The Christian faith is not a mere statute book of dogma. It is the revelation of God through clear facts, in particular the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. He, the Son of God, came to reveal God’s love to us. Religious formality leaves mankind in spiritual death, but faith in Jesus Christ means liberty and true life, which are offered free of charge to all.
Faith is not naivety or credulousness. It accepts the message of the Bible for what it is, because it is God who is speaking through it. True faith has nothing to do with superstition or fanaticism, but with trust in and obedience towards God. A Christian does not just believe blindly; he has learned that God is always right and therefore acts accordingly.