No-one Can Strip You of Your Religion

One thing about which Christians can rejoice is that no-one can strip you of your religion.  Although this fact sounds obvious, there are many people who try to act as though they can forcibly remove religion from people.  The truth of the matter is that they are absolutely powerless to do so. 

Unlike for example a jacket or a pair of shoes, no-one can take your beliefs away from you.  Even if a law were to be passed abolishing all religion, you are still free to have your own beliefs.  (You may be persecuted for them, but you can still have those beliefs - no-one can physically locate and grab your beliefs and take them away against your will.)  As an example, suppose a dictator didn't like the notion of, say, gravity, and said that believing in gravity was illegal, as was talking about it to others.  Well, whether or not you talk about it to others, odds are that you will continue to believe in gravity.

If someone thinks your religion is a load of garbage or says that they refute it and will not believe in it or tolerate it, fine, but their words have no power whatsoever to take away your beliefs.  You are the one who knows what you believe in - whatever someone else does or does not believe, is irrelevant.

There is absolutely no power on Earth that can strip you of your religion - none whatsoever.  There are plenty of people out there who would like to give the illusion that your religion is something that can be 'taken away from you'.  It's just an illusion and a clever one at that - shatter it loudly.  No matter how much someone might want to strip you of your religion, they are completely impotent to do it.  They can remove all external reference of God from your life, but that does not result in changing your beliefs.  They could persecute you, but a recanting taken under duress is not a true change of heart.  Or in a very much milder form someone can say you are being irrational or hurl insults at you, but that too has no power over what you really believe. (In fact, in some countries where true persecution happens they would consider themselves fortunate to be merely called irrational by unbelievers!) 

Our love of Christ (and, more theologically to the point, God's love of us and his grace) is a love which frees us - and is something which no other entity can take from us, no matter how much they might want to.  Whenever I think about this it is like Easter all over again. Nothing can separate us from God and Jesus against our will, nothing.

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