In this series, I define religion as "your attempt to approach and be acceptable to God through your own efforts." You would never say you are righteous through good behavior, but you might say you are unrighteous through sinful behavior. Both are legalistic and TOXIC.
The challenge with overcoming Toxic Religion is the same as overcoming any addiction, if you take on the identity of the sin, you’ll repeat it, if you take on the identity of someone who doesn’t have that problem, you can walk away from it.
Toxic Religion is focused on sin, failure, guilt, and condemnation. Toxic Religion assumes that you’re evil and you can never do enough. Toxic Religion keeps you focused on the old man and never fully puts on the new man. Toxic Religion will leave you continually seeking God for forgiveness and never truly resting in the peace that salvation by grace through faith should bring. Toxic Religion is addictive and must be cleansed from your identity.
