Pray the word with David Platt as a resource from Radical.net.

First Timothy chapter five, verse three, honor widows who are truly widows. There's a lot we could

talk about here in first of the chapter five because Paul spends a lot of time in this chapter on

this command to honor widows. And I just want you to let that soak in today. Well first, for those of

you who are widows to know that God loves you deeply, that God honors you and cherishes you.

Some 68 says father to the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation.

This is how God defines himself in that verse as a protector of widows. This is who he

is. Oh, I just hope you hear right now whether your spouse has died recently or a long time ago

that God is your protector, is your provider and desires to give you everything you need amidst

what I can only imagine, whether again recently or for many years is deep pain and heartache

and with so many emotions. I'm definitely thinking of my own mom here just for every widow here,

God's saying he honors you and he calls his church to be a picture of his honor for you. So for

us as the church, this is a command from our God to honor widows to be intentional to love widows

to care for widows to be a picture of his love to widows. I think about precious woman

and our church family who I won't go into details here, but just recently lost her husband

in tragic unexpected way and we as the church want to be a picture of God's honor for her.

And so for all of us in the body of Christ to be intentional along these lines,

I preached on this just recently in our church family from James 1 that this is religion

that is pure and undefiled before God our Father to visit orphans and widows in their affliction

and that word visit doesn't just mean to say hello. It means to care for and look after as our

own family. That's the picture in James 1 and I just want to encourage us to live this out as

the body of Christ. I've seen the fruit of this when I think about my amazing mom. When I see

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