Having established the futility of any religious claim without corresponding temperance in the use of the tongue, James goes ahead today to define what true religion is from God’s standpoint. Two things demonstrate pure religion. First, it is by engaging the weak and powerless in society. If you want to please God with your religious practice, look to the direction of the fatherless and widows and seek to alleviate their troubles. In the real sense of the word, being religious is deferring to God’s priorities and dictates. Deuteronomy 10:18 is an insight into what is dear to God’s heart: “He administers justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing.” (Deuteronomy 10:18 NKJV). God has always been mindful of the helpless in any society. When you make this your interest too, you are into pure religion. In other words, pure religion is not rhetoric; it is practical.
“In other words, pure religion is not rhetoric; it is practical…is practised by avoiding the world from squeezing us into its mould…You cannot live by the world’s standards and succeed in the faith that is in Jesus.”
Second, pure religion is practised by avoiding the world from squeezing us into its mould. There is nowhere in the Bible that sings the praise of the world’s system. The system of the world is corrupt and anti-God. It is a system that has Satan at the helms of affairs. Such a system cannot be favourable to God. Yet, it seeks to compromise our values and lures us to do things its way. We must fight this tendency in order to live the life of God. On the day of Pentecost, after a long impromptu sermon by Peter, he finally charged the people to save themselves “from this perverse generation” (Acts 2:40). Every value of the world is upside down. You cannot live by the world’s standards and succeed in the faith that is in Jesus.