Religion vs. Relationship

I notice in my life that, when I am off-track, repentance facilitates greater peace, freedom, breakthrough, etc. Unfortunately, I think the Lord is showing me that I have this dangerous habit of where if I don't feel a ton of peace or whatever going on, that I have to figure out what I am doing wrong, because that becomes my key to more breakthrough... rather than the Lord.

I'm finding there is this subtle form of religiosity that the Lord is removing from my life. It is like I'll do something - say fasting. And then the Lord will give great breakthrough. And so then I become dependent on fasting for breakthrough... while fasting started as being all about dependence on Him. And while there still is a biblical principle involved with fasting so there still might be some level of breakthrough that will occur. Since God likes fire to fall on sacrifice, I can get off track and it can stunt my growth because fasting becomes my source rather than God.

I've noticed I did this with reading the Bible. It started with all sorts of stuff jumping off of the pages as I read and thoroughly encountering God through His Word. Through encountering God through His Word I felt empowered throughout my day. As a result, I made it a discipline (not a bad thing) but the times start to become not as fruitful because I had my plan of being empowered for the day rather than through really encountering the Lord.

This might be obvious to everyone else, but I guess I find over and over again, at least for me, how relationship can turn into religion when I shift to depending on the method rather than the God behind the method.