James 1:27-“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”
All around us we hear work will slow down from now on till the new year… thanksgiving, christmas… etc. But that is the secular world per se. I don’t think working for the Kingdom slows down due to the love people have for God.
Thanksgiving have the folks in the US remember traditions and for us believers it is an excuse to bring out our gratitude and hang out our worship and thanks to our Father for all the blessings that we receive continually. Then comes Christmas when the thanks continues to go up to our Father for sending his Son, in His love for us. Yes we are grateful to God and use the holidays to spend time with our family too. What about people with no complete family? – one member died during the past year, a child is ill and in the hospital, a woman who just lost her husband the only person who cared about her in the whole world, the grown man who lost his wife and children in an accident and now lost his last living parent too… leaving him, an orphan?
The scripture instructs us as believers to keep ourselves away from the sins of the world. Believers ought to do whatever we do for the glory of God, as worship to God; to behave as though we are in God’s presence always. This happens when we are mindful of staying in God’s will and ways. God is love. His ways are all rooted in love. If we want to do all this, we must have and manifest God’s love and charity. We can possess these charactersitics if we have love and charity in our hearts and practise them. When we truly love God in our hearts and have faith, it purifies our heart, it subdues the carnal lusts, and it obeys’s God’s commands.
Have you opened your eyes in your neighbourhood – to your neighbours, orphans, widows and others in need? Have you looked around through “God’s eyes”?
Do Something — Mathew West
I woke up this morning
Saw a world full of trouble now
Thought, how’d we ever get so far down
How’s it ever gonna turn around
So I turned my eyes to Heaven
I thought, “God, why don’t You do something?”
Well, I just couldn’t bear the thought of
People living in poverty
Children sold into slavery
The thought disgusted me
So, I shook my fist at Heaven
Said, “God, why don’t You do something?”
He said, “I did, I created you”
If not us, then who
If not me and you
Right now, it’s time for us to do something
If not now, then when
Will we see an end
To all this pain
It’s not enough to do nothing
It’s time for us to do something
