Pure and genuine religion
“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” (NLT) James 1:27
In my home country Ghana, the media buzzes a great deal about how religious we are. Nominally, Christians are in the region of 60 to 70 percent of the total population. The rest of the population are Muslims and other minority religions. Hardly will one meet an atheist. Someone may be a pagan but such a fellow still believes in the existence of God.
However, in spite of our claim to being religious, we seem to have missed the mark. Aside the mushrooming of churches everywhere, most of us who professed to be Christians do not take benevolence seriously. Our churches are preoccupied with programmes which in most cases have no bearing on our salvation. We don’t teach the elementary truth of our religion anymore and when we are taught we don’t practice them.
It is not enough to be in the church in the Bible. In the sight of God, true religion is when we take time off our busy schedules and care for the vulnerable in society in cash and in kind. Anyone who professes to be a Christian who does not do this or any church which ignores this has lost the true spirit of the Christian religion.