Devotional Song: … GO TO THIS LINK … Please take the time to take in a YouTube video of images and lyrics from the group Avalon singing … Orphans of God … poignantly speaking of the need for the Body of Christ to reach out to the most vulnerable of us, as with widows and orphans, often treated as orphans to bring them into the family of God, helping them in need.
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Highlight Verse: James 1:27 [NKJV] …
27 Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.
… God charges His family of true believers to reach out and live their faith by helping the most vulnerable in the family, … widows and orphans.
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Highlight Passage [context]: James 1:22-27 … USE THIS LINK …
… James wanted his fellow Christians to be doers of the word, not just listeners and to see this manifest in helping those in need.
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Reference Passage #1 [NKJV] : ... Proverbs 14:31, 19:17, 21:13 … USE THIS LINK …
… Solomon’s wisdom on the must for believers to help the needy.
Reference Passage #2 [NKJV] : ... Matthew 25: 37-40 … USE THIS LINK …
… Jesus speaks of when He will come to judge mankind, telling all that only those who lived their faith by helping the needy will be worthy of God’s eternal kingdom.
My Devotional Journal: Today's ODB author, Amy Boucher Pye, uses a personal illustration, with which most of us can identify, to teach on our prayer life with God. She writes: The phone rang in the night for my husband, a minister. One of the prayer warriors in our church, a woman in her seventies who lived alone, was being taken to the hospital. She was so ill that she was no longer eating or drinking, nor could she see or walk. Not knowing if she would live or die, we asked God for His help and mercy, feeling particularly concerned for her welfare. The church sprang into action with a round-the-clock schedule of visitors who not only ministered to her but showed Christian love to the other patients, visitors, and medical staff.
The Church universal is the family of God; and Jesus’ brother, James, wrote to Jewish Christians of hIs day to help them see what Avalon sings in the linked song, today … that there are NO ORPHANS in God’s family. And He wanted Christians to see that we must see and meet the needs of the most vulnerable in our “family” if we are to truly BE the Family of God.
Right now, my local church is committed to living our faith by financially and spiritually supporting a local rescue mission (as pictured in the photo), reaching out to help the homeless in our area, … providing food, shelter, and the Gospel message of salvation. And this local mission support has saved the souls and lives of thousands of men over the years.
We are blessed to be an active part of an effort like this to serve God’s family and His kingdom in this life. I hope that any reading here have ways to live out our faith as James preached in the highlight passage above. We are to be DOERS of the Gospel, not just HEARERS.
My Prayer Today: Heavenly Father, help us to see those in need and then DO SOMETHING to help them … even today. ... Amen
Blogger Note: Everyday during this year, my daily devotional blogs are influenced by the reading and study of the online devotional blog entitled Our Daily Bread, distributed online via email by RBC Ministries. If you GO TO THIS LINK on the date of my blog, you can read/study the ODB blogs; or you can subscribe to the blog via email at that site.
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