Much has been written around James 1:27, but the focus always seems to be on the first half of the verse, with little attention paid to the second half. It seems every Christian can get behind “looking after orphans and widows”, but things get a little dicey when it comes to keeping oneself “unstained by the world”. In theory, we’re good with it, but when we break it down into practicalities, things get a little uncomfortable.
It’s amazing how quickly we can go from being willing to surrender everything to Jesus to being hesitant to let go of our favorite form of entertainment or vice. The truth is, we’re all allowing the world to stain us more and more each day.
What does it mean to be stained by the world? It means giving in to the ways of the world, choosing the ways of humanity over the ways of God, and, quite bluntly, sinning. That we are to keep ourselves from sin, we all know, but it is the subtler drift into assimilation with the world that can be harder to resist. Everything we do affects our spiritual soul. We are always either edifying our soul or degrading it.
Do the movies you watch glorify God or stand in contrast to His holiness? You can ask the same about the music you listen to. It applies to anything you do. Are your business practices filled with integrity, or is there a little staining going on there? Are the websites you visit, programming you consume, and conversations you engage in cleansing your soul or staining it? John tells us, “If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him” and that “everyone who has been born of God does not sin, but the One who is born of God keeps him” (1 John 2:15; 1 John 5:18). If we are to be unstained by the world, we cannot be infatuated by the things of this world.
Compromise can come on us suddenly. It’s not the obvious sins that trip up most of us. It’s the tiny habits we allow to form in our lives until they have grown so ingrained we are reluctant to remove them. We try to convince ourselves engaging in certain activities won’t hurt our walk with Christ because we draw our own lines that we refuse to cross. God has already drawn every line, and He reveals them in His Word. There is never an excuse for rationalization. We will surrender everything to Him or we will not.
To be unstained by the world is to live our lives with a singular focus on the King of kings and Lord of lords. We need nothing this world offers because we have everything in Christ. How foolish we are to think integrating the entertainment of this world into our lives will somehow make it fuller and richer. Nothing on earth compares to the glory of our God. No amount of happiness down here even approaches the joy that is found in Jesus.
Our compromise is nauseating to the Lord and leaves a stain on our souls. When we meet the Lord, we want to present ourselves clean, not stained (Philippians 2:14-15). To be unstained by the world, re-evaluate everything that fills your life, and refuse to compromise the holiness of God for the filthiness of this world.