Life For The Innocent | A Study For The Fatherless, Widow, Orphan, & OppressedSample

The Cure to Fatherlessness, Widows, Orphans and Oppression

John 3:21-22 records Jesus’ baptism in a manner that’s helpful in understanding our own identities: “when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.’" Interestingly enough, right after Jesus is baptized and receives public confirmation of his position as the Son of God, he is led straight into the desert where he meets Satan. The first tempting words out of Satan’s mouth are, “If you are the Son of God …” Satan instantly challenges Christ’s sense of “sonship,” and offers Christ all power, provision, and protection if Christ will but doubt his place as Son. 

This is the bedrock of EVERY temptation. If Satan can cause us to reject, doubt, or forget our original identity as beloved sons and daughters of the King, he can get us to fall for any number of tricks and non-satisfying pleasures. Satan knows that we all walk around with a feeling of fatherlessness, and a sensation of being oppressed and orphaned. The only cure to spiritual and physical abandonment is found in the gospel.

Christ first addresses all of our realities of spiritual abandonment in inviting us back  into his arms through salvation. If we confess Jesus as Lord, and repent of our sin, he makes his home once again in us as his house, and temple. Secondly, Christ in his care addresses all the realities of physical abandonment  in our world by working through us, his church. James 1:22-27 says that only those who “do” God’s Word will truly act out real faith; and real faith is to visit and aid those that are actually fatherless, widowed, and orphaned.

We would ask you to consider today the sincerity of your faith. A genuine faith is an active faith, not only in sensing your own need for our Father’s care over your own orphaned soul, but also in actively seeking out ways to help the cause of the fatherless, the orphaned, the widow, and the oppressed.