Colossians 4:12 Epaphras, who is one of you, a slave of Christ Jesus, greets you, always struggling on your behalf in his prayers that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God.
It is difficult to realize that religion is a strong enemy of Christ. Satan utilizes the veil of religion to deceive people.
As long as Satan can keep someone away from Christ and His Body as the will of God, he is satisfied….The Lord said, “I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18). Satan is truly afraid of the church. If someone seeks after dead and doctrinal knowledge, he can find it in Satan’s department of religion, but if some proclaim themselves in a proper way to be the church, Satan trembles. Many good Christians today have been cheated by Satan. They may speak about the Body of Christ, but they have no practice of the Body.
In God’s eyes, the old and traditional practices in Christianity without the presence and reality of Christ are a part of the present evil age. The religious age is evil because it keeps people from Christ and the church as God’s will. There is nothing as evil in God’s eyes as that which keeps us from Christ. (Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1972, vol. 3, “Enjoying Christ as the All-inclusive Spirit for the Practical, Genuine, and Real Church Life,” pp. 494-497)
More via, All things outside of Christ are religion.
