If you are going to give yourself to the pursuit of an endevour, you want to be sure that what you are dealing with is real and not a fake. That holds true for all endevours. The rise of counterfeits has pushed authorities in our societies to develop all kinds of verification systems and technologies. Technologies such as biometric identification and DNA profiling are becoming a common occurrence – all because of our desperate search for what is genuine.
When it comes to living for God and His kingdom, the way to know if we are going after the real thing is by being doers of James 1:26–27: “If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”
The first test of the purity of our faith is the attention we pay to the needs of widows and orphans in our midst. That’s because a person can only genuinely identify with what they are. God calls visiting the widow and orphan (or paying attention to their needs) something pure because such a visit is the heart of God in motion. It is a work of the hand of God in the earth. To ignore the widow and orphan in our midst amounts to gross injustice. It is a breach of righteousness and a violation of fundamental spiritual law. It goes against mercy and grace – the very things we all desperately need from the throne of God in our time of need (Hebrews 4:16). It takes a heart that is awake to its own need for God’s mercy and grace to extend mercy and grace to others in their affliction.
Widows and orphans are vulnerable because the primary natural family support system God-ordained for them is broken. God however remains committed to them as a family unit. The family is the first Godordain institution. It is also the basic building unit of society. God is determined to ensure that His will for the family stands despite the affliction that Satan causes to families by stealing, killing or destroying husbands and fathers. He has committed Himself to be a husband to the widow and a father to the fatherless (Psalm 68:5). The Bibles says “…in [God] the fatherless findeth mercy” (Hosea 14:3)
Let not your heart deceive you to be blind and cold to the needs of widows and orphans around you. Be a man or women of real faith. Awake to the beat of God’s heart – the beat of mercy and grace!
