“If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain. 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.” (James 1:26-27)
The second test of the purity of our faith is how free our lives are from the world and its influence. The Bible differentiates between the earth and the world. The earth is the planet on which we live and the solar systems around it. The world on the other hand is the order of human affairs apart from God. The dictionary defines the world order as “a system controlling events in the world”. The Bible tells us Satan is the god of that system and he uses it to deceive and lead people into the path of death, loss and destruction (2 Corinthians 4:8; 1 John 4:6; John 10:10).
Pure faith is therefore faith that is free from the world and its influence – Satan’s lies. It is faith that comes from the truth. Satan is busy going around sowing lies into people lives. His lie is an impurity because it produces doubt which weakens faith and ultimately gives birth to unbelief.
To “…keep [yourself] unspotted from the world” is to keep yourself free from the marks of the world and its influence. Those marks are noticeable in the life of believer who is deceived. They include one or more of the following three things: the lust of the flesh; the lust of the eyes; and the pride of life (1 John 2:15-17). If you are overcome by the pressure to satisfy your feelings, the pressure to have what looks pleasant or the pressure to rely on your own understanding, then you know that the world and its influence has gotten an upper hand over you.
The good news is that we don’t have to stay overcome by that pressure. The Bible says “…whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith” (1 John 5:4). We can suffocate and root out Satan’s lies from our lives by getting involved in a routine of planting God’s word in our lives. The more truth we get into our lives, the more lies we drive out of our lives and the less pressure we have from our flesh, eyes and egos. It is Satan’s lies that are behind the pressure to satisfy our feelings, to have what looks pleasant and to rely on our own understanding. Keep your faith strong by keeping the word of God flowing into your life, and the marks of the world will fade away from your life – now that’s the real beat of faith that we should be humming and dancing to!
