Pure religion

If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one's religion is useless. Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. – James 1.26-27

James moves from useless religion to pure and undefiled religion. This ought to be interesting. What are the tests of whether or not our religion is pure and undefiled? I wonder what would happen if we did a poll of people who didn’t already know this verse? What do you think we might hear?

Religious people go to church

Religious people are holy

Religious people follow the golden rule

Religious people act holy

We could go on and all of those are good things. In the gospels Jesus summarised the law with ‘Love God and love others.’

And the funny thing is that what we read here really isn't all that different.

Care for the orphans and widows

Keep yourself unspotted from the world

One of them is a way to love others.

The other is evidence that we love God because if we love Him we are going to keep ourselves ‘unspotted from the world.’

Sometimes we can complicate things so much. We add of kinds of dos and don’ts. We add all sorts of religious activities. 

But James writes that if we want to show proof of our pure religion we care about people and we act on it. That is a constant theme in the history of the church. We have always cared for the weakest and most needy around us. If we are truly religious we take care of people. I have to ask myself if I do.

And then we are to keep ourselves unspotted in this wicked old world. It is a dirty broken old world and it is easy to get caught up in it. Our challenge is to remain unblemished by the sin of the world around us while living in it.

Love others enough to help the helpless

Love God enough to keep ourselves unspotted by the world

Is our religion pure and undefiled?