Can we be too religious?

In Matthew 23, Jesus pronounces seven woes on the scribes and Pharisees. Not only were these religious leaders called hypocrites by Jesus, but their religiosity had blinded them to the fact that they were actually preventing people from coming to God rather than helping people enter into a relationship with God. Their religious exterior covered up the pride that they had on the inside.

The problem with religion is that it is primarily concerned with externals. Unfortunately we have a tendency to drift toward religion because it is usually easier to clean up our lives on the outside and appear righteous than to allow God to transform our lives from the inside out. That requires dying to self and yielding our lives to the control of Jesus and that is much harder to do than most of us would like to admit.

Let's make sure that we don't become so religious that we shut God out of our lives and the lives of others.