James writes:
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world
again he says:
As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.

I am sick of the church. More and more I find the American church so opposed to the Word of God. James teaches that our faith MUST be accompanied by deeds. Are our churches out in the world embodying God's kingdom to the poor; the orphans and widows, the homeless and the hopeless? Our churches are so centered on ourselves, and our own culture that we've gotten so far astray from what the scriptures teach us.

Jesus taught that the first in his kingdom would be the last in this kingdom. He turned upside down the social structure and economy of his day. He taught his disciples that to truly follow him they must become last, and become a servant. I don't think that the church today embodies this servant mentality very well.

I think the reason I'm most sick of church is not that I see so many hypocrites in the pews, but that I see the hypocrite in myself. I realize that as much as everyone else is getting it wrong, so am I. There's so much more we can do as a church, but I can't preach that until I get the planks out of my own eye. Even we Christians still need Christ's flow of grace each and every day. So I pray for grace in my life: to be a more faithful follower of my Savior, and to better embody a faith that is found in my deeds to the "least of these."

I think this is what Jesus meant when he taught us to be salt and to be light. That our lives, through our actions, will be what changes people's hearts, both non-Christians, and Christians. So whether the church is or not, lets get to work, and maybe through that our churches will be transformed from the inside out.