Experience as Framework:

The Nature of Behavior in Life in the New Covenant

How one defines religion will have a direct impact on the influence of that religion upon one’s behavior. For many, religion is merely something one does on Sunday morning with little to no impact on the rest of the calendar year. The practice of compartmentalization is very real and very common.

For most of the non-Western world, religion defined in this manner is an artificial construct that deceives and confuses the practitioner of such compartmentalization. Because God formed man in a physical body and breathed life into him, forming him in his likeness and image, the nature of man’s relationship with God ought to be comprehensive.

Like any other serious relationship, how man interacts with and responds to God will have a direct impact on the health of his soul. The man who is divided in his passions, seeking as it were to serve two masters, will find that doing so is only self-deception and an impossible goal. A relationship that receives only a small portion of one’s efforts will be a relationship that eventually withers.

That which receives time and attention will thrive and flourish, and that which does not, will not.