2008-11-30

Svithing Pure Religion

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The first paragraph in a recent press release from the Church:
    For members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and many others, the biblical apostle James’ definition of pure religion is more than a platitude. It is an extremely practical way to approach personal, family and community challenges. James’ understanding of this principle is expressed in this way: “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.”
Thanksgiving is a good time to think about Pure Religion. Me, I spend a lot of time utterly failing in this camp. I'm not the world's best sharer. Within my family, sure, but outside? I have a lot of growing to do. Don't expect me to sell all my crap and give the proceeds to the poor anytime soon. I've had too many bad experiences with beggars to trust them anymore and if I gave a buck to every kid who asked, I'ld soon be in the hole. And debt isn't precisely what deity has in mind for me, I don't imagine.
    Latter-day Saints take this interpretation of pure religion very seriously. Being a person of faith is something you do within the context of a world full of suffering, not just what you say or believe. Genuine and frequent charitable acts, though, are not enough on their own. They need to be enacted by individuals who are trying to live morally upright lives, or are striving to keep themselves “unspotted from the world.”
In other words, the best 'charity' is committed by the charitable. Christlike acts by the Christlike.
    Many Latter-day Saints feel this desire to reach out to the downtrodden — James’ widows and fatherless — and find that the two elements of his pure religion exist in a symbiotic relationship. Learning Christ’s teachings and reading about the way He conducted Himself motivates individuals to look for ways to engage with others the way He did. And serving those in need functions as a refining process — humbling the server, bringing her or him closer to Christ and His example.
It's cyclical. Act more charitable to be more charitable. Not hypocrisy, practice. Thy present becomes thy future. My present'll become my future.

Something like that.


last week's svithe

3 comments:

  1. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction

    I used this as a point of epiphany for one of my characters.

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  2. You know, just the other day I had a couple of (obviously) drunken brethren approach me and ask for money - for food, they claimed. I don't often get such requests here in the course of my daily travels.

    I admit, I was skeptical. I admit, my family doesn't have much to spare right now. But I also had to admit that I had recently been given significantly more than five dollars (which was the amount they specified) as an unexpected gift, and I happened to have a five dollar bill on me, which is rare. Plus I knew that my suspicion of their true intention was no grounds for my withholding my substance.

    I don't know if I gave the gift too grudgingly to count, but give it I did. Two or so days later I read this post. Thanks.

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  3. "Pure And Undefiled Religion"

    "Pure religion and undefiled before GOD The Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself uncontaminated by the world." (James 1:27)

    Simply, all other religion is impure and defiled!

    Faith will not create a system of religion.......

    Hope is there would be those who take heed unto The Call of The Only True GOD to "Come Out of her, MY people"!

    For they will "Come Out" of this wicked world(babylon) and it's systems of religion, into "the glorious Liberty of The Children of The Only True GOD".

    They will no longer be of those who are destroying the earth(land, air, water, vegetation, creatures)" and perverting that which is Spirit(Light, Truth, Life, Love, Peace, Hope, Faith, Mercy, Grace, Miracles, etc.).

    Peace, in spite of the dis-ease(religion) that is of this world, for "the WHOLE world is under the control of the evil one" (1John5:19) indeed and Truth.......

    Truth is never ending.......
    thedestructionoftheearth.wordpress.com

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