James

The Beth Moore study of James...Mercy Triumphs is great! I must say that tonight kicked my tail. A very good kick I might add. Not one that I have not read several times because this is one of my favorite books. She just explained this verse in such a great way that made it hit the head and the heart at the same time. Yes I know the verse and thought I understood the meaning. But thinking about it, being taught more about it and having someone shed this kind of light is what I needed for it to really transfer. I love grasping a concept deeply. Really basking in the real meaning and not missing important words and messages.
James 1:27
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.

This verse has always been a bit of a mystery to me. The words that helped me tonight were ACCEPTS and POLLUTED. Religion that God accepts. That is interesting. This may be what we have always known, grown up with, or been taught. We have lots of ideas about religion and what it looks like, how it should be practiced, what worship is and so on. Reading the above verse again, I have to say that I have been wrong. It is nothing about the things that we make it to be. It is simple so long as we don't let others opinions or the demands of our own lives dictate us actually following through with those things. She takes you through other verses that address: poor, oppressed, fatherless, widows again. It is not our idea of what God will accept but what HE accepts as pure and faultless.

For me the next word was the most powerful. POLLUTED. Setting the lesson down I picture oil spills, litter in parks, dirty streets, filthy environments from old buildings to smog like Beth would ask you to picture. Yuck! My lungs and eyes are burning just at the thought. I cringe and pull back knowing that if I could pick a different street to walk down I would. I picture the dirty, stinky streets in New York that could use a good washing. Pollution is disgusting but our lives are just as messy and hard to clean. In a book I am reading now called The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, he discusses how we are in a world of Information Overload.  That could also be considered a pollution.  Everything grabs for our attention, fighting to hold it. Issues that really aren't worth our time grab it and fog our thinking and distract us from accomplishing things that might actually have an impact. Pollution keeps us from doing what God called us to do.
 Her punch line sentences are always so convicting:
"How do we serve in it without smelling like it? With serious discipline, determination, courage, and deep conviction. You live His religion on purpose. Religion pure and undefiled is GRIT WITHOUT THE GRIME."
I love it! The last sentence was what my heart often feels but I feel like I walk away from circumstances completely covered in grime.  She ends the lesson with the best!! "When we sniff ourselves and smell the world, we run to the One who can wash us."  How true! I am nothing without Him.  It is a relationship that makes religion like that real. What a great translation to a verse that I needed some help with.

 Now as James would say....go DO IT!  (Lord I pray that I can and that you'll help me!)