Sunday morning, I preached from 2 Chronicles 7:14 and James 1:27. In short, I urged our congregation to engage in politics by living as ordinary Christians doing ordinary gospel centered things in their everyday life. James 1:27 urges believers to practice pure religion by visiting orphans and widows. Jesus encouraged his followers to visit prisoners (Matt 25:36). Care for the poor is a repeated refrain in the Old Testament and the New Testament. Micah urged his hearers to do justice and love mercy and walk humbly with God. One cannot read the Bible without discovering God’s heart for the poor, hurting, neglected, and vulnerable.
Some lament the lack of orphan care or widow care or care for the poor among the church, but the great charge to followers of Christ is to love God and love your neighbor. The Christian is not somehow relieved of his responsiblity if his local church has not found a way to effectively organize a social justice campaign. Christians do not need to wait for their pastor or leadership to organize a prison ministry to begin visiting and caring for prisoners. The church body can be effectively engaged in evangelism even if there is not an official evangelism program.
You can make a difference
You are not helpless. Perhaps you can’t take a child into your home, but there are things you can do.
- You can pray for foster parents.
- You can take a meal to a foster family.
- You can invest in the local DSS office.
- Maybe you can keep a kid for a night so that a foster or adoptive family can have a date.
- Perhaps you could even become a licensed foster parent so that you can keep children over a long weekend for foster families within your church. By so doing you can give kids a fun weekend and parents a much needed break.
In addition to orphan there are other ways that you can care for the vulnerable and victimized.
- You can visit the local nursing home and give love to forgotten senior adults.
- You can take a flower to a lonely widow and share Christ’s love.
- You can advocate on behalf of the vicitmized and vulnerable to your lawmakers.
By God’s grace, Malvern Hill is filled with individuals who practice “true religion” without the development of intricate church programs. Men and women visit prisons. Widows are cared for. Schools are served. The poor are fed. Orphans are loved. They practice this “true religion” because they have become convinced of the need and of their ability. They have stopped focusing on what they can’t do and found a way to focus their efforts and attentions on what they can do.
Let me urge you to step up to the plate. You can care for orphans. You can minister to the hurting. You can be a voice for the vicitmized and vulnerable. You can love others in the name of Christ. In fact, not only can you, you have a Chrisitsan responsiblity to do it. So get busy, there is a lost and hurting world out there waiting for someone to shine the love and light of Christ. Go be a light in the dark and hope for the hurting.
