By Scott HIlgendorff / Cowboys of the Cross
Ever said something in anger or frustration that you regret at home or to someone you work with after a day where everything went wrong trying to get the branding done or after the fourth weekend of not making a check at the rodeo?
We all know cowboys, or at least of them, who have died in the arena and left a wife and children behind. After the initial fund raising efforts to help with medical costs or funeral expenses, how long after have we moved on with our lives and forgotten those families. If they never have a reason to be at a rodeo again, they quickly fall “out of sight, out of mind.”
And there aren’t many of us that haven’t been tempted by the party lifestyle that surrounds the rodeo industry.
James has already taught us the importance of doing what scripture tell us to and now he’s giving us three specific examples of what we should do if our religion, our Christian faith, is real.
James 1: 26-27 Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rein on their tongues deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless. 27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
We hold our tongues.
We help widows and orphans.
We keep ourselves morally pure.
This isn’t a comprehensive list of what it takes to live out our faith but these are very specific examples from almost 2,000 years ago that James is pulling from the culture at that time. These were issues facing Christians then.
Isn’t it amazing how relevant the Bible is because these are still ways for us to live out our faith today?
And while these are just some of examples what Jesus and the Bible teach or show us are ways to live out our saving faith in Jesus Christ, they aren’t easy. Especially if you look at widows and orphans as representing the people who are most vulnerable or most in need in our culture.
A widow at that time was likely to be poor but in our lives around us, some of us right now are struggling with poverty or are one missed truck payment or a bad hay season away from bankruptcy as we are already hanging on by a thread. We know people whose lives have taken such a bad turn that they have taken their own lives. We have sex trafficking, addictions and mental illnesses that affect people sometimes at arm’s length from us and sometimes in our own homes.
It can overwhelm us if we feel the need or pressure to save every vulnerable person we know while keeping a tight watch that every word we speak is for good and every action we take is morally right. Praise God that He is in control, that we have grace for when we fail to meet these standards but most importantly, that our religion, our faith, is real enough that we have the desire to at least try.
Recent Comments