“If you claim to be religious but don’t control your tongue, you are fooling yourself, and your religion is worthless. 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 1:26-27 NLT)
Everyone is religious, even those who have no use for God. We all have our ways of doing what seems right to us and, though we might not call it our “religion,” we go about it religiously without fail. We organize our places of residence to accommodate our “religious” practices. We place our coffee, tea, milk, soda, whatever our beverage of choice, in the same place so we know exactly where it is. We could find it in the dark if we had to.
We do the same thing with our behavior. We organize our toothbrush, hair products, brush/comb, soap, shampoo, toiletries, and clothes so we know exactly where everything is. It’s how we order our lives. We want things neat, orderly, undisturbed, but easily accessible.
We may not think of those things as having anything to do with “religion,” per se, but if we’re not careful, we’ll learn to order our lives by rote. We go through any given day almost without thought. We get up, get dressed, eat, go to work, come home, eat, watch TV or scroll our devices, go to bed and get up and do it all again. Very religious!
Life becomes a process that “fits” our needs and it’s very hard for us to allow anything or anybody to “rock” our proverbial “boat,” even Jesus. If we profess faith in Christ, if anyone was to ask us, we’d say we’re ordering our lives after the Bible, or Jesus, but truth be told, we’re more often ordering our lives after what feels right for us.
And there’s not anything inherently wrong with that unless Jesus gets left out of the process. Pastor Alistair Begg wrote: “Religion without the risen Lord Jesus Christ is ultimately worthless.” We can get so comfortable seeing things and doing things “our” way, it becomes very uncomfortable and difficult to all of a sudden begin doing things God’s way. But here’s the rub: even when seeking to order our lives in accordance with the dictates of the Spirit, we still have to order them in a way that makes sense to us.
Each of us who know and love Jesus have to order our lives in such a way as to accommodate personal worship, prayer, Bible reading/study, exercise, work, taking care of kids or pets, and so forth. The thin line that we must not cross is letting any or all of that become so rote we can do it without engaging our heart.
In my personal life, I pray for essentially the same people and the same issues every day with very little variation. I need structure and repetition in order to remember things. So, I must guard against rushing through words and missing God. I can religiously say the right things but miss the reason for saying them.
Religion is much different than relationship in the sense I cannot simply spout words without understanding those words are being directed to the Lord of my life. I’m not reciting, I’m seeking to communicate with my Lord and Master. I must listen even as I speak, understanding that words are meaningless, simply a religious exercise, without the purposeful engagement of my heart, mind, and spirit.
Food for thought.
Blessings, Ed 😊
Walking With Jesus 