James 1:26, “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.”
“If any man among you seem to be religious.”
At first glance, you might think this is a verse giving us license to judge each other’s sincerity, but quite the opposite is true. This verse should compel us to judge ourselves about our own religion. 1 Corinthians 11:31 warns, “For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.” We too often are ready to criticize another’s relationship with God while we struggle ourselves. We’ve all met people that seemed “too religious.” Perhaps we often thought they were faking it, but often these thoughts reflect our own condition. Someone seems just a little too friendly as they greet you at church, yet often we are judging based on our own lack of friendliness. “Why do they smile so much?” Maybe because they can remember what we should be smiling about. We ask how they are doing, and they respond, “Better than I deserve!” What a pretentious answer! No, what an honest answer. Let’s take the beam out of our own eyes so we can honestly see if there is a mote in our brother’s eye.
That is not to say that we don’t need to exercise discernment with outhers. We need to maintain awareness so that we will “beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” Matthew 7 teaches us that “ye shall know them by their fruits.” We are taught to watch the fruits of a person and compare their teachings to Scripture to know if they are of Christ. 1 John 4 tells us to “believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God.” The great test is given in this passage also: “Every spirit that confeseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God.”
However, James 1:26 teaches us to look inward at our own religion. The thought here is that there are those that seem to be religious, but they are not. Are YOU one of them? Am I one of them? How do I know?
“And bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart.”
Religious-seeming people talk a good talk. They know the right things to say to make a good impression. They speak without thought to the truth of what they are saying. They might “Amen” the preacher and express how good the message was without making the actual change taught from Scripture. Their tongue speaks unbridled so much that they begin to believe what they are saying, even though their words are contrary to their actions. They are deceiving themselves.
You have to put this passage in the light of the previous verses that dealt with being a doer of the word, and not a hearer only. A person who is a hearer only takes in God’s Word in some way but makes no change to conform. He does not allow himself to be transformed by Scripture. James 1:25 refers to this person as a “forgetful hearer,” one who hears but doesn’t remember the lesson. This “hearer-only” is the same who seems religious with his unbridled tongue, but the Bible says that he “deceiveth his own heart.” He is fooling himself about his religion.
“This man’s religion is vain.”
Vain means empty. What makes empty religion? Talk without truth. Hearing without doing. Words without action. The man who thinks himself to be religious but speaks in empty words practices vain religion. So many people have been turned away from truth as casualties of empty religion. We talk of the impending judgment of God, but what are we doing to warn others? We speak of the love of God, but are we showing it? We praise God for His mercy and grace, but do we reflect these from our own lives? We discuss the importance of holiness (being set apart from the world), but are we living out that holiness or are we entangled in the affairs of this life? We need to preach and teach the truth of God’s Word, but we need to live in the light of that truth. Don’t let your religion be in vain. Speak the truth, meditate upon it, then do it. James 1:27, “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.”