Pray the word with David Platt is a resource from radical.net.

James chapter 1 verse 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. There's a lot we could talk

about with this first and with this chapter we've been walking through James and our church

family recently and so I've got a lot more than just a couple minutes on each of these chapters, but specifically this verse, this word, visit in James

127, religion that's pure and undefiled before God.

This is God saying to us, here's pure undefiled religion.

It's to visit orphans and widows in their affliction.

And that word visit isn't just like,

hey, drop in and say hello.

This is a word that all throughout the Old Testament

refers to how God visited his people to redeem

them, to protect them, to deliver them from slavery, to bring them into his family. And that usage continues into the New Testament.

This same word that's translated to visit here in James 127 at other places describes how God

came in Jesus to save us from our sins. He visited us by coming to us and making the way for us to be brought

into relationship with him, to have eternal life with him.

And so when we see this word in James 127,

God is not telling us just to say hello to orphans and widows. God is telling us to go to them, to look after them as our own family,

to love them, to care for them, to provide for them. And I just want to encourage you to consider today how is this

evident in your religion God is telling us that this is pure and undefiled religion

obviously this is not an exhaustive definition,

like this is the only thing that pure and undefiled religion is,

...