Things Revealed

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

James 1:27

Jesus was not a great fan of religion. Nor was he a fan of what Israel's teachers and the Pharisees had done by turning the law of Moses into a system of rewards, punishments and procedures—a religious system that left the heart unchanged and the Lord unpleased. So Jesus addressed the crowds to show them what they had unknowingly become a part of.

Because the teachers and Pharisees claimed authority in Moses’ name, they were thought to have the word of the Lord and worthy to be followed. Jesus didn’t see it that way and he warned the people about their leaders: “do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy loads and put them on men’s shoulders…” “Everything they do is done for men to see” and for recognition. He rebuked them directly, saying, “You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.” And he left no room for debate, calling such leaders “hypocrites,” “blind guides” and “whitewashed tombs” full of wickedness within. So unspiritual was the religious system that “the people of Jerusalem and their rulers did not recognize Jesus.” The leaders knew the rules but their hearts were blind to the Ruler of all creation and his heart for them.

In the beginning, God's heart was to have relationship with man. It's still his heart. He prepared a place for him so they could live together in the Garden. In the beginning, there was no law (except one: don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil). There was intimacy and fellowship—God, man and woman in Eden living in perfect harmony. But we know how that ended. And ever since then, mankind has been creating ways to make things right with God to win back his love, not fully understanding that God never stopped loving us. Ever.

Those ways are the stuff of religion. Religion creates ways to earn God’s love and his promised redemption. Religion puts all sorts of heavy loads on men’s shoulders by saying God will love you, IF…if you don’t drink; if you don’t smoke; if you dress appropriately, if you pray every day; if you clean up your language; if you give money; if, if, if…

Jesus says this: I love you, NO ifs, ands or buts.

Jesus has never stopped loving us. He gave his life for us. Anyone or any system that says we must do something to earn God’s love rather than receive it, is not biblical. And anyone or any system that says that we must do more than receive his sacrifice on the cross to be restored, has traded redemption for religion.

That’s why James says that pure religion is this: “to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” Pure religion is about abiding in Christ. It’s about the overflow of a transformed heart causing us to love not as the world loves—with conditions and expectations of reward—but selflessly, “with actions and in truth.” Pure religion is not about a duty to serve. It's about the desire to obey.

God calls us to meet together, to pray, to worship him, to be in his word, to be teachable and to teach and to make disciples of all nations. More importantly, however, he calls us friends if we do what he commands. And his command is this: “Love each other as I have loved you.” Sometimes that calls for small sacrifices. Sometimes it calls for more. And still other times it calls for the ultimate sacrifce. As Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”

Are we prepared to lay down our lives for our friends? How about just our pride? Or our rights? Or even our guard?

Doing so would be choosing obedience to Christ. It would also be choosing to lay down our lives, at least a little. And it would be choosing religion that God accepts as pure and faultless.