The essence of "True Religion"

There are but a handful of Bible verses that appear to "sum up" all of the law and prophets - that is, they appear to put in a nutshell all that is expected of the believer. Here's my short list, see what you think:

1. Michah 6:8
     He has told you, O man, what is good;
     and what does the Lord require of you
     but to do justice, to love kindness,
     and to walk humbly with your God?

2. Matthew 10:8
     Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.
     Freely you received, freely give.


3. Matthew 22:37-39
     He said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
     and with all your soul, and with all your mind'
     This is the great and foremost commandmet.
     The second is like it, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself'

4. Matthew 25:31-40
    I was hungry and you gave me something to eat.
    I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink.
    I was a stranger and you invited me in.
    I was naked, and you clothed me.
    I was sick and you visited me.
    I was in prison and you came to me.
    To the extent that you did it to one of my brothers, even the least of them, you
    did it to me.

5. James 1:23
     Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit
     orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the
     world.

I believe it is pretty easy to see the "fruit" - it's easy to see if a person is doing these things, to what degree they are doing them, and what the result is. From these verses it is obvious that the expectation of faith is not "to be" but "to do."

The controversy, then, comes, not in the "what" but in the "how." My observation is that the modern Christian movement spends far too much time judging people on the "how" rather than just observing if they have the "what."

Yeshua plainly teaches in Matthew 25 that some will be invited to enter the kingdom, and they will not even know why or how they "made the cut." There will be others who are smugly self-confident that they are "in", and they will be rudely surprised to hear the master say "depart from Me, I never knew you."

Perhaps we should start paying more attention to the "what" and be less focused on the "how."