January 30 Daily Devotional

Scripture for Day 30—James 1:26–27

²⁶ If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless. 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.

Devotional:

"The proof is in the pudding." These verses identify three "leading spiritual indicators." What are three signs of a genuine relationship with God? A first is: do you control your tongue? A second gauge is: do you show charity to the helpless?

"Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction…" (v. 27). This is not talking about your convictions about how the church or society should respond to the needy; that's a completely different subject. The question here is what do you personally do about the needy, especially in the church?

Orphans and widows are those who don't have a family to help them when they're afflicted. They are those who are helpless. But the Lord himself promises to be a "father of the fatherless and protector of widows" (Ps. 68:10). If you are united to him, then you are part of the body which he uses as his hands and feet. You are part to the body through which he ministers to his children who are needy and helpless. As a result, "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction…" The word translated "to visit" means more than to hurriedly peek in on someone. It's better translated "to look after" (NIV).

Accordingly, religion that does not look after orphans and widows in their affliction, is not "pure and undefiled before God." One may appear exceedingly religious before other people, assenting to all the correct truths and abstaining from all the taboos. He may even receive accolades from others while, all the while, in God's eyes, he is impure and defiled. "Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart" (1 Sam. 16:7).

True religion helps the helpless. The reason it does so is, first, because that is what God does. Once you were helpless, but "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom. 5:8). If God didn't help the helpless by saving us from our sins, we would still be lost. Second, the sin that our Lord Jesus saves us from is our failure to be like God, our falling short of his glory, of perfectly reflecting his image as we ought. And third, because the salvation that our Lord Jesus saves us to includes sanctification, his progress work of "Christianizing the Christian" and conforming his redeemed children to his image.

Do you show the fruit of godliness (God-likeness) by helping the helpless, especially in the household of faith? Who in your congregation fits into this category? How can you be an instrument in God's hands to help encourage them, to help serve them? Why don't you start by praying for them?

Click here for background on the author of Are You For Real?: Meditations in the Epistle of James for Secret or Family Worship.