We are most likely to go astray in this respect. A victorious Christian is a person in whom God rules. No professed Christian can triumph in life except as he is Spirit moved, Spirit controlled, and Spirit led. Spirituality cannot be reduced to a system or to church machinery under the control of men. The form of religion in terms of ritual, institutionalism, and organization is a means to an end.
Most religious systems tend toward the excess of machinery and the parasites of form.
Truth hardens into a hopeless routine. There lurks in the form of religion an inherent falsity as a result of the misrepresentation of spiritual life. There is no greater waste of mind and power than to reduce religion to externals. The Jew had the law, but did not recognize the spirit deeper than the law. He discerned the God of the law, but not God as his heavenly Father.