Pure religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. (James 1:27)
Faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen. It’s not something that changes with works. It’s a spiritual virtue that is essential for salvation and a constant foundation in a saint’s life.
A heart transformed by the Lord and a heart hardened by sin can exist anywhere in the world at any given time. A transformed heart can stumble into fleshly sin at times and a hardened heart can perform religious behaviors. It’s where they’re headed after death that makes the difference.
Weekly attendance in a building does not divide the faithful and faithless. Faith in Christ is not bound by rituals; it exists in the eternal freedom of the soul and it cannot be measured. The Savior’s work on the cross is greater than anything we could do here on this earth. His Kingdom is not of this world. Minimizing faith in His miraculous salvation and boundless love by attaching it to a religious work only devalues His work.
Jesus doesn’t look at outward appearance. He looks at the heart. A heart dead to the world and running after Christ is not going to judge intentions or waste time trying to calculate differences in faith that only the Lord could know. It’s going to show up for people. It’s going to love.
Discipline is necessary and Christ lives through faith in action, so weekly worship in a building may be included, but it’s not the entire focus of the pure religion God calls His chosen vessels to.
Focusing on weekly rituals is something even satan can do, but spreading the gospel, sitting with the afflicted, and striving to be free of the world’s stains is only something the power of the Holy Spirit will do.
I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. – 1 Corinthians 13:2-6
But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. – John 4:23
Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified. – Galatians 2:16
