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Pure Religion

I've struggled with the term "religion" for a long time because it has come to carry a connotation for me of something orchestrated, institutional - a perfunctory exercise. My preference instead has been to highlight my belief that what our God desires from us is instead "relationship". Then I ran across this and I had to pause...

"Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you." James 1:27 (NLT)

"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." James 1:27 (KJ)

It doesn't matter the translation, it appears the same. And in it I denote a familiar spirit. I recognize it from scripture after scripture dealing with the care of, and justice for, the widows and the fatherless...

"Sing to God, sing praises to His name; Extol Him who rides on the clouds, By His name Yah, And rejoice before Him. A father of the fatherless, a defender of widows, Is God in His holy habitation. God sets the solitary in families; He brings out those who are bound into prosperity; But the rebellious dwell in a dry land." Psalm 68:4-6 (NKJ)

... It's the heart of the one true God, The Father of all fathers, tender for the disadvantaged and downtrodden among the spirits that He gave life to. His own heart jealous for them as He watches, looking for kindred spirits - hearts after His own, to care for who and what, He Himself loves. His gaze, watching and waiting to see who will pass the test of kinship to His own heart - those who bear the mark of "pure religion".

The test is for us. It's a test to try the religion of those who claim to bear His name. I believe that the reward that He seeks in His search, is to find a heart that reflects the very image of His own.


"He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?" Micah 6:8 (NKJ)

“And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes which I command you today for your good? Indeed heaven and the highest heavens belong to the Lord your God, also the earth with all that is in it."  Deuteronomy 10:12-14 (NKJ) 

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