carolinasteve

Not all who strive to follow the religion, achieve the relationship(bold face is for emphasis only-not confrontation).
Here's my short answer:
I believe that the two are of action and consequence, and neither is valid without the other. How can we truely know the religion, without the relationship? Yet how can we express the relationship, without the religion?
Here's my reasoning behind it:
I agree that Christianity may not be unique in it's "premis" of an ongoing relationship with God, but the level of intimacy of our relationship with God, manifested in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in all true believers, is totally unique. It is this level of intimacy with Christ that we are to desire, that He desires(or it would not exist), and all of our religious practices(prayer,fasting, worship) center around this. It is the promise that Christ gave us, that when we place our faith in Him, He will send us a companion, a guide to live within us, to be with us until he returns to us. This is the promise of an ongoing, evolving, relationship with God, through which our religion is given true power, meaning, and validity.Unlike other religions, Christianity promises a unique purpose for every individual. We know that God desires to use us to glorify Himself, and that He offers to show us His individual plan for our lives when we submit to His will. Yet, He purposely withholds specific details of His plan for our lives, in order to foster our faith in Him. We absolutely cannot come to know and perform His specific ongoing will for us, as individual creations without developing a relationship of speaking to and listening to Him on an ongoing basis. Therefore, the Christian cannot experience, or fulfill the purpose of the religion, without the relationship. However, when you develope the relationship, under the guidence of the Holy Spirit, the practice of the religion manifests itself naturaly, as a specific course of thought and action, prescribed, or given to us, by God, of comming to know Him through prayer and the reading of His word, trust through revelation of His faithfulness to His promises to and for us, love that grows as we come to know and trust Him , and obedience to Him out of our love for Him, in order that He will be glorified.