Today I want to share some of my favorite quotes from a great book I just finished reading: "Fields of the Fatherless" by Tom Davis. His words convicted and inspired me at every turn of the page. This week: exerpts from chapters 1-4. Next week, the last four chapters.
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"Scripture mentions the importance of caring for (widows and orphans) more than sixty times! Clearly, the protection and well-being of these people is one of God's great and constant concerns. He actually defines who He is by His promises to them: A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in His holy habitation. (Ps. 68:5)"
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"When it comes to caring for people on God's heart, indifference is a sin."
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"According to the Bible, the needs of the poor are to be absorbed into society (Deut. 24:17-22). The needs of the fatherless aren't only financial, so throwing a check at the problem once a month is not the answer. The fatherless have social, emotional, and spiritual needs money alone can't solve. This is where you and I come in. This is where we live out the command of Matthew 10:8. Not only by providing a portion of our "fields" financially, but also by giving of our time and talents to enter into the lives of the suffering - to walk among them and give them hope and a future."
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"If only 7 percent of professing Christians around the world responded, every single orphan in the world (143 million of them) would have a home."
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"I believe once people open or lend themselves to the idea of adoption, God works in miraculous ways to bring about the desire of His heart: the grand orchestration of setting the loneliest of His children in a loving, caring family."
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"What Jesus didn't say is almost as important as what He did say. He didn't say, 'Whenever you help the successful people or the truly religious people, you're helping me.' No, the people Jesus was referring to (in Matt. 25:35-36) were down-and-out, people who couldn't care for themselves, the helpless, the needy. Ministering to these people, Jesus said, is equal to ministering to Him."
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James 2:14-17
What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitue of daily food, and one of you says to them, "Depart in peace, be warmed and filled," but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
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