1 Corinthians 2:12-14 now we have received not the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God so that we may know the things freely given to us by God which things we also speak not in words taught by human wisdom but in those taught by the Spirit combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words so what Paul is telling us here there are two ways we can walk according to the natural mind or the spiritual mind the natural mind always leads us into religion we want to talk today about the difference between religion and relationship religion functions in the natural mind the carnal mind what is religion it’s basically the natural mind of man attempting to interpret spiritual things and spiritual relationships with God you’re natural mind will always misinterpret the things of God not understand the things of God remember one time, when Yeshua said to His disciples beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees they said you know what He’s mad at us because we didn’t bring any bread with us on the boat trip no, Yeshua’s not talking about bread He’s talking about leaven which is the teaching the sowing into people from the Pharisees that something that’s wrong something that’s bad it doesn’t have anything to do with physical food but the natural mind will always misinterpret the things of the spirit of God natural is actually the Greek word psuchikos which comes it’s from the word psuché which is from the Greek from which we get the English word psyche or Psychology the study of the soul psuché has to do with the soul as a matter of fact Romans 8:6 uses this same word psuché or psuchikos about the natural man says the natural man is at enmity with God and that enmity translated in English means deep-seated hatred you know what that means? your natural mind hates God and is always going to interpret spiritual things in a foolish way so what is religion religion is the soul being motivated by the spirit of the world to try to serve God it says we’ve not received the spirit of the world so the spirit of the world is a religious spirit that tries to motivate us to serve God in our own human flesh to try to serve God not in the spirit but to serve God out of our own motivation out of our own desire to serve God out of our own fleshly strength rather than abiding in the spirit and letting God flow through us it’s very interesting there’s always a ditch on either side of truth truth is like a road and there’s a ditch on either side I find that religion has a ditch on either side of the truth the truth is walking with God in dynamic relationship Religion is always static religion always knows the answers relationship requires a dynamic relationship with God religion says, this is the truth relationship says God I need revelation from you and I need to be in relationship with you that’s the road that’s the truth but religion has one ditch on this side called legalism another ditch on this side called compromise let me just define those legalism is applying any standard it could be God’s word or any other standard that you put in your mind with no concern for the individual or for the heart of the people concerned legalism is applying a standard with no compassion or concern for people compromise on the other hand is abandoning God’s standards of truth for the sake of trying to accept people and tolerate people you know tolerance is a big word in our society these days or to not be judgmental and we abandon God’s word in an attempt to accept people so really, here’s an interesting definition anyone to the right of me anyone who holds a higher moral standard than I do they’re legalistic and anybody who holds a lower moral standard than I do they’re compromised they’ve departed from God and of course the perfect moral standards are the way I see it I understand the perfect moral standard that person is deceived and of course we’re all guilty of that from time to time anybody with a higher moral standard is legalistic anybody with a lower moral standard is compromised and the way I see it is the truth no, in reality the truth is the word of God and this is the standard that we all need to conform to so what I encourage you to do today is as Paul said we haven’t received the spirit of the world but the spirit who is from God let’s read the word of God and that’s why we’ve even called this little daily word Daily Spirit and Truth let’s take the word and walk in the spirit with love and compassion and blessing toward people so if you’ll do that today take God’s truth walk in love bless people around you you’ll make a difference in your environment