City Life Starter

Written by PJ Thomas

The Word

⁵A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. ⁶God sets the lonely in families, He leads out the prisoners with singing…

Psalm 68:5-6

Reflection

In Psalm 68, the root word used for families is bayith. It literally means house but is also used in various places to mean homeland, or when used as an adjective to mean “inside.” The totality of this word in these verses shows God’s priority to cause the “outsiders,” like the orphaned, the imprisoned, or the widowed, to be “insiders.”  And because that is God’s priority it ought to be our priority as well (James 1:27, Matthew 5:5). Jesus modeled this exquisitely for us in His earthly ministry. He made special care to reach out to those their culture despised and considered unclean. In God’s social hierarchy, those outsiders are the insiders.

Application/Prayer

In today’s world so many people feel like outsiders because of their beliefs, their circumstances, or characteristics that others define them by. But in Christ we can join the family of faith. Meditate on Christ’s example of reaching towards to those the world cast out. Ask the Lord how you can bring someone “inside.”