“Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 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 1:22-24, 27)
Some of my fondest memories of church fellowship is when we would have a new person come. It could be someone that we met and we found out that they have been out of fellowship but felt called to come back to their “first love”. Many times, even though they were living with their spouse, they are coming without his or her support. What a blessing! And what a responsibility. Or, the first time we would have a youth or a group of youth come for their first time to “check-out” youth group for the first time. Sometimes, only one of them, would return again. Often, we might find out that their parent or parents were not interested or were against their decision to find out about Christ. What an encouragement for us to know that the Holy Spirit is prompting them to come.
From a “spiritual” perspective, both of these cases and the countless others that they represent, would be considered widows and orphans because they have no one in their immediate family that are in fellowship with the Lord. They represent an incredible responsibility for us as the Church because many times we have very little information to follow-up with. Then, they show up and there is only a note on the door saying we no long offer direct fellowship, the face they can see and the hand they can touch, but they can go on-line and get a video message. Obviously, they represent the “feed My lambs” invitation that was given to Peter. Not the “take care of My sheep” or “feed My sheep”. I pray that the Holy Spirit will give us direction. He has already given us the power. If necessary, I pray that we would crucify anything that is of the flesh would keep us from “looking after these orphans and widows” in their distress.
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