Orphans, Widows and The Glory of God

Isaiah 1:17 says "Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the cause of orphans. Fight for the rights of widows." (NLT)

 As a teenager the Lord began to grip my heart for the poor and oppressed, often making trips into Winnipeg's North End to minister to those living on the street and caught in a life of alcohol and prostitution. I knew they were dear to the Lord's heart, I just didn't understand why. As time passed and I finished College, I found myself living in the North End of Winnipeg and attending the Winnipeg Centre Vineyard, where I experienced in a very tangible way what it looks like for the Church to do justice and love mercy. They had a vision for the poor, and the sign on the wall read "let worship and justice kiss". However, no matter how many times I heard them talk about the poor and what it meant to "do justice", I never truly understood what they meant.

Unfortunately, I think this is true of many of us, and many organizations. We have great mission statements which are rich in Utopian rhetoric, but almost nobody can explain to you why engaging in this mission is so important. Or more specifically, why it is so important to God!

Back in those days at the WCV, if I asked many of my friends why we are to remember the orphans and widows, many of them would have passionately responded by saying "because God cares about the widows and orphans!". This is very true, the Scriptures are full of reminders to this extent. But how many of us have ever stopped to ask ourselves why these commands are so important? What is it about the widows and orphans that moves Jesus heart so deeply? Is it because they have it worse off then the rest of us? Is it because He arbitrarily picked these two afflictions as being more important then the others?

We know that "God does not show partiality" (Romans 2:11) and that we are commanded not to show favoritism when giving testimony regarding a poor person on trial (Exodus 23:3). So why have more compassion on these two groups of people?

That question has plagued me for many years, but a few weeks ago while reading Isaiah 1 the Lord blessed me with a marvelous revelation. You see, every command is intended to display His Glory, His Nature, His Name. In fact, everything that has been created, including you and I, was made for the sole purpose of displaying the Glory of God. And this is the motivation behind God's heart for the Widow and the Orphan!

We exist to give Him glory, and in order to do that we must accurately demonstrate what He is like. And this is who God is: God is a Father and God is a Bridegroom, therefore, anything that does not make that reality known in the earth is opposing the Glory of God, it is unjust (because God is Just). Injustice is more accurately understood as being non-justice, or NOT being like God.

So, when you see the Fatherless, and begin functioning under the Spirit of Adoption by taking that orphan into your care, you are doing justice. You are demonstrating that no person is left without a Father in the Kingdom of God. God is a Father. A Father who loves children and has set His heart on adopting into His family every orphan that would come to Him. When we become Fathers to the fatherless, we are displaying God's nature in the earth. (And for what it's worth, evangelism is the single greatest way to do justice; turning spiritual orphans into Spiritual children!)

Likewise, when we care for the Widow, we manifest the intense longing of our Bridegroom King Jesus.Why? Because it is un-Godly for a Bride to be separated from her Husband! ("What God has joined together let no man separate" - Mark 10:9) That's not just a cute line intended for ceremonial purposes. It manifests the fiery passion of God's heart for His glory to be revealed through the covenant of marriage. God loves marriage, and created it to demonstrate His nature. When the visible manifestation of His nature is destroyed through the curse of death, the tangible Glory of God is wiped further from the face of the earth. The result of less Glory being made visible is that less worship is being given to the One who is worthy of ALL worship.

God is a Father, and in His kingdom there are no Fatherless. God is a Bridegroom, and in His kingdom everyone has a Husband.

That's why He commands us to remember the orphan and widow.

So what does it mean to "do justice"? It means that we are to realign the natural things so that they accurately make visible the Heavenly things; an act which re-establishes God's praise in the earth.

However, we must be sure of one thing - remembering the Widows and Orphans is not merely about humanity taking care of it's own; for that has it's end in man, and humanism is an abomination to God! If we are loving our neighbor, remembering the poor, the widow and the orphan simply because they have flesh like us and because we believe that every human has that innate "right", then we are grossly deceived. The issues of justice are all about re-establishing God's Name as a praise in the earth. His Name as Father and Bridegroom. For Colossians tells us, that in everything Christ will have the preeminence - which means  everything is to find it's end in Him receiving all of the Glory, all of the Honor and all of the Praise. We must be sure of this - He is the end of all things, not us!

Jesus taught us this important reality, that His desire is for it to be "on earth as it is in heaven".

Those simple words reveal much about His heart, and we do well to gaze upon the heavenly reality and ask that He manifest it in the earth.

That is true Justice.
That is true Worship.