Turning to God or Just Getting Religious?
It's a problem these days in the soulwinning business that we are facing people who say, "Well I've turned to God." but however they are just getting religious. It's very, very tragic whenever I face the reality that people seem to be turn to God but are actually only religious, not godly. So they say you can be godly without Christ which is total baloney as these so-called conversions. What's the evidence of them just getting religious? I would like to raise the fact that when these people think that they need God, for them He just an add on not a startover. Instead of coming to Christ as broken sinners in need of forgiveness, pleading guilty for sin out of the realization that they CANNOT save themselves they instead take another wayward path of works salvation which the person instead just does a pseudo-repentance of rituals rather than a real repentance that results to authentic works. As said, you can have works without faith but never faith without works. Examples of these pseudo-repentance are well attending Sunday masses, going to confession frequently to the priest, praying the Rosary, lighting candles to supposed saints, etc. rather than the sinner fully understanding that they cannot save themselves and only God can change their lives. It may seem that they have changed for the better but they are just becoming worse and worse as they are still in rebellion against God.
Such people refuse to understand the fact that NONE and I mean none of these activities can really help a man's soul because man CANNOT save himself or herself. The truth of the matter is that in Ephesians 2:8-9 we have to realize this that salvation is NEVER by works lest any man should boast. Works salvation is nothing more than man's pride and just a balancing of good works against bad works which is NOT how God's perfect righteousness is defined in the Bible. Instead, the problem of these people who claim to turn to God and show off their religiousness may still have other sins well loved and think there is nothing wrong. Maybe they may be doing works of charity but the motive as said, is self-serving that is hoping God will forgive them of their sins when in fact Isaiah 64:6 states that man's righteousness CANNOT meet the standards of God's righteousness. Unless people really understand James 2:10-11 that says that it only takes ONE SIN no matter how big or how small it is to lose standard to God's favor, they'll never turn to God. In fact despite their "so-called conversion" but theirs is just the mark of a false conversion. They heard God's Word but not in full, it's a diluted message that leads to a false conversion. You might want to consider that in their praying the Rosary, praying to various "saints" and doing manmade penance, donating money to charity, etc. are nothing more than their efforts to try and achieve their own righteousness while being ignorant of the PERFECT righteousness of God (Romans 10:3).
Like I know someone after he had a minor cancer just kept getting religious. He was told he needed to be saved but he would rather stick to the "miracle prayer books" and the supposed "miracle cures" from Lourdes which none of them helped him until to the point his cancer grew and eventually killed him. That is very sad and only God knows if he made a list minute repentance as he had heard the Gospel MANY TIMES. It's very sad in fact that even during his supposed repentance, he was still in his sinful live in relationship with his live in partner and still refusing to reconcile with his wife thinking nothing is wrong with it until it came to the last point. People will just try God as an "add on" rather than come to Him fully broken and fed up with their sins. That's the problem with manmade religion- it omits God's grace, kills the right spirit to do the right thing and is self-serving in actuality while creating a license to sin. People NEED to see God, not manmade religion.