Pure Religion

This is from the book “Reckless Devotion” which I’ve mentioned a couple times before. I LOVE this book. And I wanted to remember what authors and missionaries Heidi and Rolland Baker wrote about Pure Religion:

What is pure religion? What is pure Christianity? What is pure love? What is this life all about? Is it about how many people we lead to Jesus or how many churches we plant or how good we are as people? Or is it about being so hidden in the heart of our awesome, eternal God of love that we are swallowed up in Him until it is no longer we who live, but Christ living in us?

“And the King will answer and say to them, “Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me’” (Matthew 25:40)

The reason I am in Africa, the reason I have come to serve here, the reason I am alive, is for this purpose and this purpose alone: to learn to love as Jesus loved.

Every day Jesus meets me in unexpected ways. Sometimes He is an orphan looking for love and unconditional acceptance. Sometimes He is a widow desperately begging for a simple job in order to provide the basic necessities of life for her hungry children. Sometimes He is another lost and broken person who just needs a hug and someone to listen. But every day I see Him in a new way.

What matters most is love. Jesus living inside us is happy to use our hands to heal the sick, our arms to hug the lost, our feet and our mouths to go and speak about the Kingdom to all who need to hear it.

This is “faith working through love.” (Galatians 5:6)