True Religion

What does God require of us? It’s one of the most critical questions we need to ask ourselves. As we have seen in earlier devotions here on this website, Jesus gave the perfect answer in Matthew 22:37-40: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

How does that look in our lives? How does it play out in everyday routine?

These passages paint the picture for us:

Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. (James 3:13 & 17)

And the word of the Lord came again to Zechariah: “This is what the Lord Almighty said: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another.’” (Zechariah 7:9-10)

Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow. (Isaiah 1:17)

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. (James 1:27)

Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter— when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? (Isaiah 58:6-7)

Defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked. (Psalm 82:3-4)

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.

And what does the Lord require of you?

To act justly and to love mercy

and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:8)

What God requires of us is to keep our hearts committed to obeying Him in all we do and to be His hands and feet in reaching out in love to help the people around us. It’s very simple.

In the parable Jesus used in Matthew 25:40, the King says, “ ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ “

Against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:23)