Coconut
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Pure Religion
Jam 1:27 Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
The beautiful, the special, the extraordinary are found in the ordinary if they are to be found at all, and everywhere, over everything done for Jesus sake, no matter how small, there hovers a sense of holiness.
Holiness has to do with the small stuff of life - doing good things in secret and in silence. This is pure religion James says; "To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, [and] to keep himself unspotted from the world."
Quiet unpretentious deeds, done out of the way and in quietness, attack our pride, our hunger for power and prestige, our desire for recognition and approval, our determination to be important. They train us in the practice of humility, which is the essential practice of godliness.
Interesting word, religion. James uses a word that seldom occurs in the New Testament. It refers to the trappings of worship: liturgy, ceremony, and ritual. It is what we think of these days as the 'worship' portion of a church service. To James real worship did not lie in elaborate vestments, or in noble liturgy, or in magnificant music, or in a carefully wrought service: it lay in the practical service of mankind and the purity of ones personal life.
Some religion is "worthless" to use James precise word, in that it has no effect on us at all. It leaves us unchanged. The one who practices that religion "deceives himself" This is a religion that comes of prattling about the Word but not doing it. The Word tries to act upon us, but we will not humbly receive it, and so it makes no imprint upon our souls. That religion says James, is illusory and fanciful because it leaves us unchanged.
Pure religion shows itself in quiet spontaneous acts of love - looking after "orphans and widows in thier distress" caring for the helpless, the mournful, the friendless, the forsaken, the wretched of the earth. It does what most people are unwilling to do. It exaderates what the world neglects. God is on the side of the widow or orphan, perhaps because most people are not.
We can do this when we remember that God is the Father of the downtrodden and disenfranchised, and that includes us. We too have nothing but our wretchesness to bring to God. Only when we remember His pity for us can we speak or act in pity. Then we have a religion that God can accept.
James writes, pure religion is characterized by a determination to "keep oneself being polluted from the world" Thus he introduces the most misunderstood and misapplied concept, "the world"
The Bible says "Love not the world" and who of us can argue with that directive? All good christian people know they should`nt be like the world. But what does it mean to be worldly?
When I was growing up worldliness was smoking, drinking,card playing, gambling, movie going and other scruples. But those proscriptions don`t go deep enough: they dont touch the heart. It`s possible for me to avoid doing any or all of them and still be pulluted.
I can avoid suds and slow dancing and yet harbour rank bitterness and resentment in my soul.
I can kick the smoking habit yet remain selfishly ambitious.
I can go to prayer meetings and Bible studies yet gossip and spread rumors that blight and ruin the lives of my neighbors.
I can avoid the theatre, and all its impurity, and yet play XXX-rated scenarios in my mind and corrupt myself from the inside out.
I can stay away from poolhalls and poker games and get bent our of shape when i`m not pampered and pandered to.
It does`nt add up, and it should`nt. It should`nt because these conventions miss the point. The center of worldliness lies elsewhere - in the cold springs of motives and intentions, in the world`s attitudes that pullute our souls.
Worldliness is being resentful when we`re snubbed or patronized. It is smarting when our contributions are overlooked. It is reacting angrily and defensively to words spoken agianst us. It is growing bitter when another is preferred before us. It is harbouring grudges, nursing grievances, wallowing in self pity. These are the ways we are most pulluted by the world.
God has something better for us. He would have us rid of all grudging, all bitterness in word or thought, all gauging and measuring of ourselves with a different standard from that which we apply to another. He would have no curling of the lip; no indifference to the man whose service we use; no desire to excel another; no contentment at gaining by anothers loss. He would not have us receive the smallest service with ingratitude; would not hear from us a tone that would hurt the heart of another, a word to make it ache, be the ache ever so transient. (George MacDonald)
May God fill every cranny and nook of our being with that religion.
- excerpt from Growing Slowly Wise by David Roper
Jam 1:27 Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
The beautiful, the special, the extraordinary are found in the ordinary if they are to be found at all, and everywhere, over everything done for Jesus sake, no matter how small, there hovers a sense of holiness.
Holiness has to do with the small stuff of life - doing good things in secret and in silence. This is pure religion James says; "To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, [and] to keep himself unspotted from the world."
Quiet unpretentious deeds, done out of the way and in quietness, attack our pride, our hunger for power and prestige, our desire for recognition and approval, our determination to be important. They train us in the practice of humility, which is the essential practice of godliness.
Interesting word, religion. James uses a word that seldom occurs in the New Testament. It refers to the trappings of worship: liturgy, ceremony, and ritual. It is what we think of these days as the 'worship' portion of a church service. To James real worship did not lie in elaborate vestments, or in noble liturgy, or in magnificant music, or in a carefully wrought service: it lay in the practical service of mankind and the purity of ones personal life.
Some religion is "worthless" to use James precise word, in that it has no effect on us at all. It leaves us unchanged. The one who practices that religion "deceives himself" This is a religion that comes of prattling about the Word but not doing it. The Word tries to act upon us, but we will not humbly receive it, and so it makes no imprint upon our souls. That religion says James, is illusory and fanciful because it leaves us unchanged.
Pure religion shows itself in quiet spontaneous acts of love - looking after "orphans and widows in thier distress" caring for the helpless, the mournful, the friendless, the forsaken, the wretched of the earth. It does what most people are unwilling to do. It exaderates what the world neglects. God is on the side of the widow or orphan, perhaps because most people are not.
We can do this when we remember that God is the Father of the downtrodden and disenfranchised, and that includes us. We too have nothing but our wretchesness to bring to God. Only when we remember His pity for us can we speak or act in pity. Then we have a religion that God can accept.
James writes, pure religion is characterized by a determination to "keep oneself being polluted from the world" Thus he introduces the most misunderstood and misapplied concept, "the world"
The Bible says "Love not the world" and who of us can argue with that directive? All good christian people know they should`nt be like the world. But what does it mean to be worldly?
When I was growing up worldliness was smoking, drinking,card playing, gambling, movie going and other scruples. But those proscriptions don`t go deep enough: they dont touch the heart. It`s possible for me to avoid doing any or all of them and still be pulluted.
I can avoid suds and slow dancing and yet harbour rank bitterness and resentment in my soul.
I can kick the smoking habit yet remain selfishly ambitious.
I can go to prayer meetings and Bible studies yet gossip and spread rumors that blight and ruin the lives of my neighbors.
I can avoid the theatre, and all its impurity, and yet play XXX-rated scenarios in my mind and corrupt myself from the inside out.
I can stay away from poolhalls and poker games and get bent our of shape when i`m not pampered and pandered to.
It does`nt add up, and it should`nt. It should`nt because these conventions miss the point. The center of worldliness lies elsewhere - in the cold springs of motives and intentions, in the world`s attitudes that pullute our souls.
Worldliness is being resentful when we`re snubbed or patronized. It is smarting when our contributions are overlooked. It is reacting angrily and defensively to words spoken agianst us. It is growing bitter when another is preferred before us. It is harbouring grudges, nursing grievances, wallowing in self pity. These are the ways we are most pulluted by the world.
God has something better for us. He would have us rid of all grudging, all bitterness in word or thought, all gauging and measuring of ourselves with a different standard from that which we apply to another. He would have no curling of the lip; no indifference to the man whose service we use; no desire to excel another; no contentment at gaining by anothers loss. He would not have us receive the smallest service with ingratitude; would not hear from us a tone that would hurt the heart of another, a word to make it ache, be the ache ever so transient. (George MacDonald)
May God fill every cranny and nook of our being with that religion.
- excerpt from Growing Slowly Wise by David Roper
