It has been forever since I wrote anything but I have been convicted lately to put certain thoughts to (digital) paper. This exercise may just be for me to get some stuff out or someone may actually benefit from it.
I have been seeing a lot of things in the bigger picture sense lately. As I am reading, listening and learning, the keyhole broadens. I am not sure if this is a God thing or maybe just how my mind works but I am finding that there are a lot of things that I can no longer take at face value. I will be discussing these interpretations in this and future blog posts, so if you have no interest, close your browser now.
Still here…. SUCKER!!!
The first thing I want to write on is a verse that came up in the bi-monthly meeting of my band of brothers. it is James 1:27.
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.
After many years in the church environment I basically thought that this meant to be of assistance to that demographic. Essentially that these verses were calling me to charity work. So I joined my wife in fighting human trafficking, sponsored 2 kids in foreign lands and thought “I am living up to this.”
While those few charitable things I mentioned are certainly awesome things to do and by giving my time, efforts & money to these things I am certainly seeing to orphans like the verse (at face value) says. However after meeting with my homies, I was convicted to expand the parameters of this verse. I started to pray in the spirit and after a 20 minute drive home my brain felt like it had been through a weekend seminar.
As I started looking at this from a spiritual perspective, my definition of widows and orphans changed. When we think of widows we think of a woman who’s husband has died. I have heard several references to Christ being the bride of the church (including the parable about the chicks with lantern oil) and wanted to dig a little deeper.
Isaiah 54:5
For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called.
I know… Old testament, doesn’t “really apply” to those of us under the new covenant right… (there needs to be a sarcasm font)
2 Corinthians 11:2English Standard Version (ESV)
2 For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.
We are betrothed to the 1 husband, the bridegroom, that would be Jesus. If we believe that is the case, then who are the spiritual widows in this world?
Maybe you see where I am going with this, but before I bring home my final point, let’s talk about orphans. Of course I am not talking about Annie or the kids you see on late night TV. Although if you are not sponsoring one of them, please visit https://www.compassion.com/ and quit being so selfish!!
As widows lack husbands, orphans have no parents. So I looked at a couple of verses that had to do with God as our spiritual father.
Psalm 65:3 (NIV) A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.
Ephesians 2:8-10
oFor by grace you have been saved pthrough faith, and that not of yourselves; qit is the gift of God, 9 not of rworks, lest anyone should sboast. 10 For we are tHis workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
Now if saving (also loving) someone despite their works, beliefs or if they “deserve” it certainly sounds like the type of love only a parent can bestow. I love and adore my wife but there are times (more than I’d like to admit) that I give this kind of grace to my kids and not her. So I am working on that.
And let’s think of the magnitude of that gift, this unearned grace. While we are the least deserving is when God shows us the most love. (that may be the topic of another blog)
I deduced that in the spiritual sense widows have no spiritual father and orphans have no spiritual parents.
So when we I look at the verse from James we started with, here is how I see it from this expanded perspective:
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to chase after the lost in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
What if this verse has nothing to do with our traditional view of widows and orphans but instead is a statement that the “religion” that God accepts is to create disciples? Seeing as how that was the last thing he said before taking the escalator to eternity, we maybe should focus on this. Their distress is not knowing Jesus. Can you imagine the distress you would be under if you did not have him in your life (or the lack of stress of you truly gave your life to him (subnote to my subnote, preaching in the mirror there) and let him control that one area you just cannot seem to let go of)
So let us do our part to make our religion one that God accepts as pure and faultless. Let us undertake the task we were designed for. Let us show God that just as he selflessly gave everything for us, we are going to give selflessly to those that he wants as part of the kingdom, you know, like everyone that is not already there.
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