Sometimes God wants me to go first…

Where I live, spending time with widows is relatively easy. Not so concerning orphans. For instance, the local children’s hospital has rules about visitors. If a child has no family or no family visits (it happens), I could not visit those children without special vetting and permission. Orphans are protected by laws to keep the public from seeking time with them. This is, of course, protection from predators, but it also keeps me for obeying all of this verse:

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. (James 1:27)

Piper points to an OT verse that speaks about caring for those who are unable to care for themselves:

Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him. (Isaiah 30:18)

While this is not as specific as James about those to whom God shows mercy, it is clear that He does it to show His glory. I can transfer that to the description in James and rightly assume that caring for needy people exalts the Lord. Piper puts it this way: “One mark of great, self-sufficient poise is the willingness to get down low with the weak.”

That opens the door to far more than two groups of needy people. It even puts me in that category because God gets personal by using “you” to describe those He wants to be gracious toward. He is talking about those who wait for Him. Needy people do that, also people who are humble and realize that God is eager to help. It is not about those who take matters into their own hands. Instead, I am to wait on the Lord. However, the point is that God exalts Himself by showing mercy.

Since mercy is taking pity on and showing compassion to those who do not deserve it, this covers the entire human race. Salvation is a mercy because our sin means sinners should be punished, yet to be merciful is to be like God.

This gets personal. It tells me that if I am not merciful with those who are weak, I’m not being like the Lord. In the Bible, “weak” can describe those who are feeble, sick; morally weak; or those lacking in knowledge or faith. I know several who fall into each of those definitions. The feeble and sick are easiest to be merciful toward, but I get annoyed with those who seem dim about God and dim in their faith. I get  the same reaction in my heart when Christians disobey.

In other words, my ability to be merciful has great flaws. I do better when I remember how much mercy God has shown me, but pride and self-righteousness often jump in instead of treating others  in humility and with His compassion.

Maybe this is why God illustrates with widows and orphans. It is much more likely to feel tender-hearted to them than to others who are weak as a result of their own choosing or because they fail to seek the truths of God that will strengthen them. Yet I’m faced this morning with a similar challenge. Will I be strengthened in my faith and walk with God by being merciful to those whose sins and spiritual neglect usually annoy me? To do this, I must first do this:

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)

PRAY: Lord, I’m acutely aware of the people who disregard Your principles and choose to do life their way, even when their Bible is open in front of them. I pray that You will change their hearts but You have not done so, indicating that it is my heart that You first wish to change. Piper’s line of being willing to get down low with the weak points to my bad attitude of not being willing to put up with others who are unwittingly feeding their old nature and as a result fail to glorify You. This does not mean that I endorse what they do, but that I should have mercy on them and bless them, releasing them to experience Your grace in their hearts because You have worked forgiveness in mine.