If anyone thinks he is religious without controlling his tongue, then his religion is useless and he deceives himself. Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and keep oneself unstained from the world.
James 1:27 HCSB
Our pastor often says, “It’s not about the religion, it’s about the relationship.”
If it’s all about the relationship with God, then what is religion? Interestingly enough Wikipedia says many scholars have failed to agree on a definition of religion. If you check the dictionary, however, you will find various definitions. The Cambridge dictionary is probably the most simplified found in my brief search. It defines religion as the belief in and worship of a god or gods, or any such system of belief and worship. The Christian religion is given as an example.
It also defines religion as an activity that someone is extremely enthusiastic about and does regularly. Football was given as an example of being a religion for some people.
While football and Christianity are totally different from each other, they can both be examples of a religion. Interesting isn’t it?
As Christians we are considered to be Christ followers, so it is about our relationship with Jesus Christ. If we truly love the Lord, we want to be in a right relationship with Him. We practice religion or devotion to Him. In doing so, we love Him with all our heart, soul and mind and we love others as we love ourselves as He told us to do in Matthew 22:37-39. We honor Him by serving Him and serving others. We devote ourselves to Him.
Our Scripture passage is the only one I have found that used the word religion. It begins by mentioning the tongue. In James 3:1-12, he goes into much more detail about controlling the tongue. He talks about how huge animals like a horse are controlled by the bit in their mouth. He talks about how a huge sail is controlled by a tiny rudder. If we can’t control our tongue, we can make our religion useless. We can defile our religion.
If you want to keep your religion pure, you need to honor God in all you say and all you do. Jesus said in Matthew 12:36-37, “I tell you that on the day of judgment people will have to account for every careless word they speak. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.”
Often times when people’s words are harsh, mean or just plain ugly, I try to tune them out. There is enough negativity in this world without me hearing more of it. We must know, however, that God is listening. He hears every word we speak. He hears the bad stuff and the good. We condemn ourselves with our negativity and meanness. We acquit ourselves with our kindness to others.
I’ve made enough mistakes with my mouth in the past, I’m trying to do much better. I lean on God for help. We can pray Psalm 19:14 to ask God to help us with our mouths. In this Psalm, David said, “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to You, LORD, my rock and my Redeemer.”
Our relationship with the Lord is often seen or described by outsiders as our religion or us being a religious person. Our mouth can ruin that in one word spoken. In order to keep our religion and our relationship pure and undefiled, we must control our tongue. We must be kind to those in need and last but not least we must keep ourselves unstained from the world.
We are just passing through. Don’t get tangled up in all that is wrong with this world. Don’t become bitter and negative and stained by all you see. God’s word tells us these things will occur. Trust in Him and surrender to Him today. He’s got this. We simply need to do our best to remain pure.
Have a great day!