To Encourage You

James 1:27 “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”

Are you religious?  What, in God’s view, is religion?  The word translated “religion” here in James 1 means “ceremonial observance.”  That’s what most people think about when they think about this word.  A religious person is someone that goes to church or some other place of worship often. They may be someone that doesn’t eat certain things, dresses in a certain distinct way, observes certain ceremonies, or acts in certain ways.  Maybe they stop everything to bow down and pray three times a day.  Whatever external “religious” observances with which they may be involved, the verse above doesn’t include any of them in God’s definition of religion. 

In God’s view there are two elements in what He calls “religion.”  The first element is a demonstration of love and empathy toward those in need.  It’s not just feeling sorry for someone, but it involves going to those in need and encouraging or helping them in some way. At the time this was written, the neediest people in the society were widows and orphans.  They had the most needs, and there was no excuse for a true follower of God to not, at the very least, reach out to them with some act of love. 

But there is another element to true religion: to keep oneself unspotted from the world.  It’s a life that stands out against the world by not engaging in the sin that is a natural part of it.  Both elements are necessary to be deemed “true religion” in God’s sight.

One can give all they possess to the poor, but if there is no love of God in their lives, i.e., they continue to sin against God while they appease their conscience by doing some good works of some type, it is as nothing in God’s eyes (1 Corinthians 13).  On the other hand, they may be someone who “won’t drink, won’t chew, and won’t go with girls that do,” yet they have no concern for the needy and never reach out to them. They are like those that James talks about who see “a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and . . . says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body.”  Of this he then says, “what good is that?” (James 2:15-16). 

In God’s view, unless both elements are a part of our life, our “religion” is less than what He wants it to be – and perhaps no better than no religion at all.