See that you do not despise or think less of one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven [are in the presence of and] continually look upon the face of My Father who is in heaven (Matt. 18:10 AMP B).
Every child has an angel that reports to God on that child. If you reject that child, you reject Jesus.
If you cause a child to sin, Jesus says that it would be better that you were drowned with the equivalent of concrete shoes.
But if you cause one of these little ones who trusts in me to fall into sin, it would be better for you to have a large millstone tied around your neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea (Matt. 18:6).
Jesus identifies with that child so that how we respond to a child in need is actually how we respond to God.
James, the half-brother of Jesus, picked up on this point of going out of your way to care for fatherless and motherless children and says that this is what pure worship of God is. Worship in action is protecting and tending for the helpless: those who are hurting and abused.
26 If you claim to be religious but don’t control your tongue, you are fooling yourself, and your religion is worthless. 27 Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you (Jas 1:26-27).
God sees injustices that happen to others as injustices actually happening to Him. This has been a common theme all throughout the Bible.
Take Barak, for example. He called to action the tribes of Israel to overthrow Sisera, captain of the Canaanite army. There was one city that refused to cooperate in overthrowing the Canaanites and they were cursed because they didn’t come to help, not Barak, but the LORD.
'Let the people of Meroz be cursed,' said the angel of the LORD. 'Let them be utterly cursed, because they did not come to help the LORD — to help the LORD against the mighty warriors (Judg. 5:23).
God strongly identifies with us. In fact, He so strongly identifies that He came as a non-threatening baby into our race to deliver us from our biggest enemy, sin. Not many people saw that baby as God and refused to have that baby deliver them. They treated Him so badly that He died on a cross.
We are blessed when we care for the helpless for the helpless actually identify as Jesus. Here is our opportunity, today, to care for Jesus.
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All quotations are from the NLT unless otherwise stated.
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