Religion vs. Spirituality

“When religion replaces the actual experience of the living Jesus, when we lose the authority of personal knowing and rely on the authority of books, institutions, and leaders, when we let religion interpose between us and the primary experience of Jesus as the Christ, we lose the very reality that religion itself describes as ultimate.”–Brennan Manning in The Wisdom of Tenderness

Loved this quote posted by JulieT found on another blog. I have been thinking about this a lot-religion (rules and regulations) versus spirituality (seeking God which often feels like playing a game of hide and seek). For anyone who has been reading my blog, I believe that experiencing God is as important as following faithfully. There are people who seem to never have fallen into the love of Christ but can quote all sorts of books and dogma. I feel bad for them. How can you follow something faithfully if it has no real value? And how can it have value just on what someone else says but you have not personally known? And if you are seeking, Christ said we would find what we sought, so how can you not know?