Message Magazine’s Online Devotional for Wednesday, April 13, 2016
“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).
Practically speaking, the only way we can be worth our weight in salt during the short time we have to live in this world is if we have maximum impact on our families and larger society. While our pure religion principle calls for our characters to be unsullied by the world’s paradigm, it absolutely does not enjoin a separate but equal approach. It does not enjoin pure religionists to simply say that society has the right to push its agenda while we live according to ours as long as they do not intersect. God has not created any of us to be segregated, but rather integrated.
Jesus said it this way: “I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil” (John 17:15). Jesus, the Master Teacher, modeled the utmost in integration. Not only did Jesus come and visit earth from His lofty throne, He mysteriously changed His form, assuming human flesh after it was weakened by thousands of years of evil, so He could deliver us from sin’s power.
If ever a person will have a prayer of being effective in changing the world, that person must eat where the world eats, sleep where the world sleeps, play where the world plays, all while maintaining a live connection with God to receive up-to-the-minute power and instructions.
So your marching orders for today, should you choose to accept them, is to first link with God for strength and instruction, then live your life with God’s agenda and people’s wellbeing in mind.
