Religious vs Pure and Faultless Religion
OPENING PRAYER:
God, thank you for walking through this week with me.
READ:
“Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” James 1:26-27
REFLECT:
Yesterday, we focused on how spending time in God’s Word should do more than leave us with a list of references – it should transform us and move us to action.
This can seem a bit daunting, but let this challenge in James settle in. Religion is not just going to church or even just reading scripture. Pure and faultless religion is so much more.
Scripture should smooth out the callouses on our hearts. The world wears us down and makes us distrust others. God’s Word builds us up and opens our hearts and eyes to those who are hurting around us, making it a natural and necessary reflex to seek out ways to act.
In the Greek, verse 27 does not contain an “and.” It literally reads: “to look after orphans and widows in their distress to keep from being polluted by the world.” These things are not exclusive or somehow separate from one another ---- they are directly linked. Our focus on meeting the needs of those around us keeps us from being polluted by the desires of this world.
APPLY:
Faith is easy to fake. Just about anyone can learn the right things to say to sound “churchy.”
It is a much bigger commitment to actually live out our faith in the way that God calls us to. This demands that we are honest, vulnerable, and accessible to the hurting around us.
How are you turning your life toward action in the name of Christ? What is standing in the way of you doing that?
CLOSING PRAYER:
Jesus, help me answer the calling on my heart to seek and act outward rather than putting on a show of my faith. Give me a heart that is bent to the needs of those around me and help me lead others to a full, honest faith that testifies to your goodness.