Genuine Religion: Bridle Your Tongue, Serve Widows, Pursue Holiness

Are you looking at things that are inappropriate on your computer screen or on your cell phone like all your friends do at school, like all your coworkers do, and it's not that big of a deal? There is a big deal about this. We are to be unspotted from the world. That is pure religion. We should strive for holiness. It should be a passion and a desire of our life. Are you pursuing righteousness and holiness in your life? That's pure religion. [00:58:19] (28 seconds)  #PursueHoliness

We need to be constantly examining our lives to see if the dirt of the world is defiling us. Do I love the same things as the world? Do I do the same things as the world? Do I respond the same way that the world responds? Is there a difference between my life and that of an unsaved person? Do I act one way at church and another way at home or at work? Remember what Jesus called the pharisees at the beginning when he he talked about them being white at sepulchres? He said, you hypocrites. [00:55:40] (33 seconds)  #ExamineYourHeart

God is always looking at our heart. Are you willing to inconvenience yourself, yourself, your life goals, your ambition for the benefit of somebody else? Are you willing to be a help or a benefit to those who won't be able to repay you? Are you willing to care for the most vulnerable of our society? That is being a doer of God's word. It's acting like Jesus. It's denying ourselves. [00:51:20] (26 seconds)  #DenyYourselfForOthers

See, love for god and love for this world system are are mutually exclusive. They're they're contrary to one another. When James and John speak of the world, they're not they're not referring to businesses and social activities or or the necessary things of the this world. What they're talking to talking about is the unholy things that stand between us and our god. Our relationship with our god and the things that that dirty us, the characteristics of this world. And a genuine believer must protect himself from the desires and dirt of this world. [00:54:42] (32 seconds)  #GuardAgainstWorldliness

Search me, oh god. What is there in your life right now that god is not pleased with, That god is not happy with, and are we willing to put it away? Notice that it says here in verse number 27, pure religion and undefiled before god and the father is this. Not before man, not before other Christians, before god. That's who we try to please. That's who we need to please. We we obey not because we're trying to earn god's favor but because we love him. [01:00:46] (35 seconds)  #LiveToPleaseGod

And there's so many in Christianity that act one way within church, but then you go outside of church. You go in their home. You go into their into their workplaces, and they act completely different. Hypocrites. The person who has a genuine religion, who is a doer of the word is different from the world around him. He is different from unsaved people. There's a characteristic of of cleanliness in his life. The way that they speak, the way that they they dress, the way that they act is not unclean. It's not an it's not sinful. It's it's unspotted from this world. [00:56:21] (37 seconds)  #UnspottedLiving

But we treat sin like that so often. We get so accustomed to it. We get so used to it. We're we allow it into our lives. And it's not that big of a deal, and we don't even notice it anymore. But the Bible says, pure religion, genuine religion is unspotted for the things of this world. It's clean. It washes away. And to me, that is a matter of the heart. What do we really want? Are we pursuing holiness? Is that really important to us? [00:59:25] (34 seconds)  #FightSpiritualApathy

It's giving of our time, and it's giving of our lives. It means taking time out of our busy schedule to be a father figure to a to an orphan that has no one else to care for them. It's to take time out of our schedule to mow the lawn for a widow that that can't do it on their own. It's an investment of our personal energy and our life into the lives of other people. [00:43:28] (21 seconds)  #ServeWithYourTime