The other Sunday while sitting in church the song "A Beautiful Life" really stood out to me. The life described in the song wasn't one of "following your dreams", or "a story of extreme success", It was one of almost complete service! The line's "I'll help the sick and poor and weak", and "words of kindness to them speak" were just some of the convicting phrases unfolding this Beautiful Life. It reminds me of the verse that tells of pure religion. "Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit the orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep one's self unspotted from the world" (James 1:27). Why is that undefiled religion? Why isn't something like faith, prayer, or meditation undefiled religion? "Now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love" (I Corinthians 13:13). That was the last verse of a very good chapter on love? The Apostle Paul described love as the "final bar", the goal for all Christians, even higher than faith! Even the words in red say "By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:35). Love is what sets us apart from the rest of the world! But our love is not one of just having love, but is carrying it out. The rest of I Corinthians 13 describes love as an action, not only a feeling. Love without action, is dead. So the challange of "A Beautiful Life", and "Pure and Undefiled Religion" really hit home for me. Do I show His love to others? Do I lift my desires above others? Do I pull over the help the stranded motorist? Or reach out to the young person who is struggling with temptation? Or the smaller things closer to home, like family? Am I living "A Beautiful Life"?
True Evangelical Faith Cannot Lie Sleepy
For It Clothes the Naked
It Comforts the Sorrowful
And it Gives to the Hungry Food
And it Shelters the Destitute.
-Menno Simons
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