Can I pray for you in any way?
Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.
In Christ, Mark
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
** Follow The Christian Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk
** Like posts and send friend requests to the author of The Christian Walk, Mark Cummings on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mark.cummings.733?ref=tn_tnmn
** Become a Follower of The Christian Walk at http://the-christian-walk.blogspot.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
"Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan. If you do and they cry out to Me, I will certainly hear their cry. My anger will be aroused, and I will kill you with the sword; your wives will become widows and your children fatherless." Exodus 22:22-24
This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
Have you ever been alone?
Of course, we all have had a time when we were by ourselves for a brief period but that’s not what I am talking about here. The kind of loneliness I’m referring to is one of total isolation, a feeling of forsakenness where there’s no one to bring comfort, no one to talk to, no one to hold you, no one to love you.
It’s a terrible place to be, for sure, and unfortunately, there are countless people in our world today who find themselves there.
It’s important to discuss this problem because I thing we tend to lose sight of the lonely while enjoying the blessing of our own relationships. There’s a real tendency to assume that everyone enjoys the same social interactions that we do. The statistics tell us otherwise for one in every four households today has only one resident. Whether by way of choosing to remain single vice married, or by way of the death of or divorce from a partner, the numbers are troubling when we couple them with the potentially adverse psychological damage caused by loneliness.
Well, as we see in today’s verses from our continued study of Exodus, chapter 22, this problem was also a serious matter back in the days of the Old Testament, Specifically targeting widows and orphans, women and children left abandoned and often ignored by society, we read where the Lord commands that they be cared for and not taken advantage of. Any violation of His order would come with the following harsh consequences:
“If you do (take advantage of a widow or orphan) and they cry out to Me, I will certainly hear their cry. My anger will be aroused, and I will kill you with the sword; your wives will become widows and your children fatherless."
This isn’t the only place we find the Lord emphasizing His expectation to care for widows and orphans in society. Consider these other passages:
"Leave your orphans; I will protect their lives. Your widows too can trust in Me." Jeremiah 49:11
"At the end of every three years, bring all the tithes of that year's produce and store it in your towns, so that the Levites (who have no allotment or inheritance of their own) and the aliens, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns may come and eat and be satisfied, and so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands." Deuteronomy 14:28-29
"Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless." Isaiah 10:1-2
"Sing to God, sing praise to His name, extol Him who rides on the clouds—His name is the Lord—and rejoice before Him. A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in His holy dwelling." Psalm 68:4-5
"So I will come near to you for judgment. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive aliens of justice, but do not fear Me," says the Lord Almighty." Malachi 3:5
"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." James 1:27
Given all this, and knowing that we still have widows and orphans in our world today, the scriptures cause us to reflect on how well we are responding to His call to care for those who are alone.
Do you know someone who is widowed? If so, have you taken any time to visit them, to check in to see how they are doing? To provide help if they need it?
My wife and I take an older man with us to church every Sunday. About five years ago, we got connected to him and his wife who joined our church and attended a class I taught. A few years later, she developed an aggressive cancer that took her life and left him widowed. He doesn’t drive and so we stepped in and made sure he could still come and enjoy fellowship and worship. It means the world to him and it’s just one way that we can step in and do something to make a difference in the life of someone who has been left alone.
In regard to orphans, I visited one when I was stationed in Djibouti, Africa during my service in the Navy. I still have a picture of a little baby I held and bottle fed, a baby without their birth parents. She was just one of around twenty children who had been left alone, now in the care of the orphanage staff. The good news was that all of the children were in the process of being adopted with a future ahead that would find them loved and properly cared for.
Here in the United States, there is a Christian organization founded by contemporary Christian singer/songwriter Steven Curtis Chapman and his wife Mary Beth. The ministry is called Show Hope and they help assist families who wish to adopt an orphan child. They are quickly approaching a milestone of helping connect 10,000 children with loving families.
If you have it in your heart to adopt, then the Lord has a child in mind for you to care for. If you aren’t in a place to adopt, you can provide monetary assistance to organizations like Show Hope to support their ministry mission. My wife and I have done this for years now, our response to the calling of God.
The bottom line here is that there are many opportunities available for us to "look after orphans and widows in distress." For just as Jesus did everything He could to love others, so too should we, extending and reflecting His tender care to those in need, especially the vulnerable. My prayer is that we all will commit ourselves to seek out the lonely, providing encouragement and support. For it costs nothing to bless someone with the gift of your time, fellowship, and love. And through your actions, anyone isolated will be able to see that through Jesus, they never need to ever be alone again.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment