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.”

There are times in one’s life when the right person says just the right thing at the right moment and it can change everything. That happened to me back in my graduate school years.  One day on campus one of my fellow students asked me if I could help him out with some field work related to his thesis research. He needed help on the upcoming Sunday.  I told my colleague that I could help him, but not until the afternoon, because I planned to attend church in the morning.  That’s when he said something that hit me like a hammer: “Why do you do the things you do on Saturday night and then go to church on Sunday.  I used to do that but I felt so guilty that I quit attending church.”  

With that direct and very honest statement, I realized how much of a hypocrite I had become.  It was an encounter that I know God graciously used to help set me on a path that led me back to a closer relationship with Him.  I had become an example of one of the misguided tendencies that the Bible warns us about, which is the temptation to compartmentalize life into the “religious” and the “secular.”  

Throughout Scripture we are told of those who were “religious” in their own eyes, but missed the mark entirely when it came to truly honoring the God they were supposedly worshiping. One such example was the Pharisees. They were masters at this.  Jesus condemned them for not caring for their aged parents in the name of their religion. He told them “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition!  For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’  But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban”’ (that is, given to God)—  then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother,  thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do” (Mark 7:9-13).  Elsewhere He rebuked them with these words: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat (which was one of the smallest “unclean animals according to the Old Testament Law) and swallowing a camel (one of the largest)!” (Matthew 23:23-24).  

This attitude reached its epitome when these same people murdered the Son of God. As they plotted to kill Him and as the high priest, Caiaphas condemned Him to death, the Jews then took Him to Pilate’s judgment hall hoping to have Pilate sentence Jesus to be crucified.  We are told “Then they led Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the governor’s headquarters. It was early morning. They themselves did not enter the governor’s headquarters, so that they would not be defiled, but could eat the passover”(John 18:28).  Incredibly, in the very act of committing the greatest crime that anyone ever committed, they were meticulous in their efforts to be “religious” and not ceremonially defile themselves before the Passover by entering the abode of a Gentile.  

It is to this attitude that James speaks in the verse above.  Did you know that the word “religion” is found only five times in the entire Bible?  This is one of them.  James points out that the religion that God views as pure is religion that does not divorce religious practices and ceremonies from everyday life.  He points out the worthlessness of any religious observance or practice that ends at the door of the church or synagogue. For someone to attend church every Sunday but neglect the needs of people like widows and orphans on the rest of the days of the week is to deceive oneself about their “religion.” To put on a righteous show with hymns, offerings, and religious rituals when we’re inside a church building, but to be unrecognizable from the ungodly as soon as we walk out the door is not a religion that God recognizes as genuine.  It’s as God admonished the nation of Israel who, at the time, were fastidious in their religious worship, but were disobedient in their everyday lives: “I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them.  Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:21-24).  

Even so, may God keep us from fooling ourselves with our “religion.” May our faith be much more than rituals that we practice on one day per week. Rather, may our “religion” be that which God accepts as pure and undefiled, because it’s something that affects our living each and every day of the week.