3 Modern Day Wise Men?

I have seen myself being influenced the past couple of weeks by 3 sources. 1. The book of James. Although there is speculation as to who actually wrote the book of James, it is a worth while daily devotional to skim through the 6 chapters. A person that is extremely busy can afford 10 minutes of their day to be brought back to earth a little bit. 2. Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. Not only did our Theology on Tap group just talk about this book, but I was lucky enough to find it in the midst of my ever growing library collection. If this book has found the ever growing dust in your constant strife to keep up with your reading, trying makeing it a priority, it is a worth while read. 3 The Comfortable Pew by Pierre Berton. It has a preface that tells us that this is for the Anglican Church of Canada, but please, don't think that these problems are not far reaching to all of our denominations. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The reason I mention the above three books is, I have seen a constant theme between 3 different perspectives on Religion and Christianity. For the sake of helping define what I mean between Religion vs. Christianity, I will take a second to explain my views on the 2. Religion is the set of dogmatic and theological differences that make up our ever increasing denominations. Christianity is the belief in Christ and that He was the Son of God sent down to die for us and our sins. Although simple definitions and whole books could be written about the two, those are my brief defintions as I stand. The book of James perspective is based on the teachings of the early church in the view of either James himself (the originally doubting brother of Jesus Christ) or at least a complilation of teachings from churches that James shepard to. Regardless of it's background, it is from the perspective of a Christian mind. The book, Mere Christianity, is from the mind of an individual that was an Athiest and explains how Christianity made more logical sense than anything else in his life. This being from the perspective of a once non-believer. The third book is from the perspective of a successful writer that no longer practices his Religious beliefs. The book was written in 1964, so he might have started up his practicing, but for the sake of his perspective at that time, it was a critisism from an outsider. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3 different views from 3 different perspectives, with one outlining message to me as I read them. If we find ourselves as Christians feeling that we are better than our so called enemies, be it people that theologically think differently, atheists, Jews, Muslims, Gays, etc., and base our critsism on our self described Christian standards, we have only to look in the mirror and see our only true enemy...Pride. Perfection has only been perfected once, maybe twice depending on how you look at it, and that is God and the begetting of his Son Jesus Christ. We must remind ourselves that if as Christians we ask what James and John did in asking Jesus if they could sit on the left and right hand of him, we should be ashamed of thinking we have exalted ourselves to that deserving privilage. Do not look down upon your brothers and sisters, and I don't mean just your brothers and sisters in Christ, look up at them and allow your Pride to fall from your eyes. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dear heavenly Father, Open our eyes to the humility that has been spoken by You to us for centuries. Help us to drive pride from our hearts and to kick out the petistal of our Christian Hierarchy and focus on being actionable Christians to your word. Through thought, word, and deed, I will be You Lord Jesus Christ...AMEN!