From Religion to Relationship: Why Trying Harder Will Never Be Enough
Every January, gyms across the country fill up with people who have made a firm decision: this is the year everything changes. They buy the membership, show up faithfully for a few weeks, and feel the momentum building. But by February, most of those same people have quietly returned to their old routines, still paying for memberships they no longer use, still carrying the weight of an unfulfilled resolution.
There is something deeply human about this pattern. And if we are honest, it does not just show up at the gym. It shows up in our spiritual lives too.
We sense something is wrong. We feel the gap between who we are and who we know we ought to be. So we throw ourselves into activity. We serve more, pray more, attend more, give more. We are chasing something -- a clean conscience, a sense of wholeness, a feeling that we are finally right before God. And for a while, it feels like it is working. But then, slowly, the momentum fades. The itch remains. And we are left wondering why all of that effort did not do what we hoped it would.
Hebrews 10 addresses this very tension with striking clarity, and its answer is both humbling and liberating.
The Honest Limits of Religion
The opening verses of Hebrews 10 make a bold claim: the religious law, with all of its sacrifices and rituals, was never designed to be the final answer. It was a shadow -- a pointer toward something greater, not the thing itself. The sacrifices of bulls and goats, repeated year after year, could never actually take away sin. They could remind people of their need. They could set the stage. But they could not complete the work.
The proof is in the repetition. If a sacrifice truly solved the problem, why would it need to be offered again and again? If the gym membership truly transformed you, why would you still feel the same pull toward the couch? The need for repetition is itself an admission that the solution is incomplete.
This is not a critique of spiritual discipline or religious practice. Reading Scripture, gathering with other believers, serving the poor, worshiping together -- these are all genuinely good and important things. But when they become the thing we are trusting to make us whole, they will always fall short. They will scratch at the surface of a need that runs far deeper than any activity can reach.
What God Actually Wanted
So if God commanded the sacrifices but did not ultimately desire them, what was he looking for? Psalm 40, quoted in Hebrews 10, gives us the answer. It describes the heart of one who comes before God not with burnt offerings, but with a simple declaration: I have come to do your will.
What God desired was never a religious transaction. It was an obedient heart. A heart so aligned with his own that following his ways would not feel like a burden but a joy. A heart on which his law was written not in stone, but in the deepest interior of a person's being.
The problem, of course, is that no human being has ever lived that way perfectly. Adam rebelled. Israel faltered. David transgressed. The priests who were meant to represent holiness before God were themselves in constant need of cleansing. The standard was clear, but no one could meet it.
No one, that is, until Jesus.
The One Who Did It Perfectly
Jesus Christ is the obedient Son the Father had always been looking for. He came into the world and declared, in the words of Psalm 40, that he had come to do God's will. And he did -- completely, perfectly, without a single failure. Where every other human being had fallen short, he stood firm. Where the law had exposed the gap between humanity and God, Jesus crossed it.
And then he offered himself as the final sacrifice. Not one that would need to be repeated. Not one that would leave the worshiper still conscious of unresolved guilt. But a once-for-all offering that accomplished what centuries of animal sacrifice could never do. Hebrews 10 puts it plainly: by a single offering, he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.
Two Realities, One Life
This brings us to one of the most important and often misunderstood aspects of the Christian life. The passage speaks of two things simultaneously. Those who are in Christ have already been perfected -- their standing before God is complete, secured, not dependent on their performance. And yet those same people are still in the process of being sanctified -- still being shaped, still growing, still becoming more like the one who saved them.
These two realities cannot be separated. To claim the benefits of Christ while showing no evidence of his transforming work is a contradiction. And to strive endlessly for a perfection you hope to earn through effort is to miss the gift entirely. The Christian life is not about arriving at a status or grinding toward one. It is about receiving a new identity and allowing that identity to work itself outward into every corner of your life.
This is the new covenant promise, first spoken through Jeremiah and fulfilled in Christ: God's law written not on tablets of stone but on human hearts. Not head knowledge alone, but a genuine change of desire. A new want. A new will. A heart that rises to say, I want to do your will, Lord.
The Freedom of a Forgotten Record
Perhaps the most stunning line in this passage comes near the end. God declares that he will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more. If God is not keeping a record, you do not have to keep one either. The guilt that drives so many people into frantic religious activity has been addressed at its root. The conscience that cried out for cleansing has been answered -- not by anything we have done, but by what Christ has done.
Where there is forgiveness, there is no longer any offering for sin. The work is finished.
The question worth sitting with today is this: which side of this tension do you find yourself on? Are you spinning your wheels in religious activity, hoping it will finally scratch the itch that only Christ can reach? Or are you resting in a past decision while showing no signs of a heart being transformed?
The answer to both is the same. It is not trying harder. It is not doing less. It is receiving Christ -- his forgiveness, his righteousness, his Spirit, his new covenant written on your heart -- and letting that reality become the engine of everything that follows.
Every January, gyms across the country fill up with people who have made a firm decision: this is the year everything changes. They buy the membership, show up faithfully for a few weeks, and feel the momentum building. But by February, most of those same people have quietly returned to their old routines, still paying for memberships they no longer use, still carrying the weight of an unfulfilled resolution.
There is something deeply human about this pattern. And if we are honest, it does not just show up at the gym. It shows up in our spiritual lives too.
We sense something is wrong. We feel the gap between who we are and who we know we ought to be. So we throw ourselves into activity. We serve more, pray more, attend more, give more. We are chasing something -- a clean conscience, a sense of wholeness, a feeling that we are finally right before God. And for a while, it feels like it is working. But then, slowly, the momentum fades. The itch remains. And we are left wondering why all of that effort did not do what we hoped it would.
Hebrews 10 addresses this very tension with striking clarity, and its answer is both humbling and liberating.
The Honest Limits of Religion
The opening verses of Hebrews 10 make a bold claim: the religious law, with all of its sacrifices and rituals, was never designed to be the final answer. It was a shadow -- a pointer toward something greater, not the thing itself. The sacrifices of bulls and goats, repeated year after year, could never actually take away sin. They could remind people of their need. They could set the stage. But they could not complete the work.
The proof is in the repetition. If a sacrifice truly solved the problem, why would it need to be offered again and again? If the gym membership truly transformed you, why would you still feel the same pull toward the couch? The need for repetition is itself an admission that the solution is incomplete.
This is not a critique of spiritual discipline or religious practice. Reading Scripture, gathering with other believers, serving the poor, worshiping together -- these are all genuinely good and important things. But when they become the thing we are trusting to make us whole, they will always fall short. They will scratch at the surface of a need that runs far deeper than any activity can reach.
What God Actually Wanted
So if God commanded the sacrifices but did not ultimately desire them, what was he looking for? Psalm 40, quoted in Hebrews 10, gives us the answer. It describes the heart of one who comes before God not with burnt offerings, but with a simple declaration: I have come to do your will.
What God desired was never a religious transaction. It was an obedient heart. A heart so aligned with his own that following his ways would not feel like a burden but a joy. A heart on which his law was written not in stone, but in the deepest interior of a person's being.
The problem, of course, is that no human being has ever lived that way perfectly. Adam rebelled. Israel faltered. David transgressed. The priests who were meant to represent holiness before God were themselves in constant need of cleansing. The standard was clear, but no one could meet it.
No one, that is, until Jesus.
The One Who Did It Perfectly
Jesus Christ is the obedient Son the Father had always been looking for. He came into the world and declared, in the words of Psalm 40, that he had come to do God's will. And he did -- completely, perfectly, without a single failure. Where every other human being had fallen short, he stood firm. Where the law had exposed the gap between humanity and God, Jesus crossed it.
And then he offered himself as the final sacrifice. Not one that would need to be repeated. Not one that would leave the worshiper still conscious of unresolved guilt. But a once-for-all offering that accomplished what centuries of animal sacrifice could never do. Hebrews 10 puts it plainly: by a single offering, he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.
Two Realities, One Life
This brings us to one of the most important and often misunderstood aspects of the Christian life. The passage speaks of two things simultaneously. Those who are in Christ have already been perfected -- their standing before God is complete, secured, not dependent on their performance. And yet those same people are still in the process of being sanctified -- still being shaped, still growing, still becoming more like the one who saved them.
These two realities cannot be separated. To claim the benefits of Christ while showing no evidence of his transforming work is a contradiction. And to strive endlessly for a perfection you hope to earn through effort is to miss the gift entirely. The Christian life is not about arriving at a status or grinding toward one. It is about receiving a new identity and allowing that identity to work itself outward into every corner of your life.
This is the new covenant promise, first spoken through Jeremiah and fulfilled in Christ: God's law written not on tablets of stone but on human hearts. Not head knowledge alone, but a genuine change of desire. A new want. A new will. A heart that rises to say, I want to do your will, Lord.
The Freedom of a Forgotten Record
Perhaps the most stunning line in this passage comes near the end. God declares that he will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more. If God is not keeping a record, you do not have to keep one either. The guilt that drives so many people into frantic religious activity has been addressed at its root. The conscience that cried out for cleansing has been answered -- not by anything we have done, but by what Christ has done.
Where there is forgiveness, there is no longer any offering for sin. The work is finished.
The question worth sitting with today is this: which side of this tension do you find yourself on? Are you spinning your wheels in religious activity, hoping it will finally scratch the itch that only Christ can reach? Or are you resting in a past decision while showing no signs of a heart being transformed?
The answer to both is the same. It is not trying harder. It is not doing less. It is receiving Christ -- his forgiveness, his righteousness, his Spirit, his new covenant written on your heart -- and letting that reality become the engine of everything that follows.
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Pastor Matthew Dionne
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