Helping Ourselves

Helping the poor can be pretty challenging. Why? Because most of us don’t know anyone who is truly poor and in fact if we were in a group of people we generally would seek out the people who we have the most in common with… not the poor.

We also tend to judge the poor. Something like this, “they’re poor because they’re lazy. God doesn’t like lazy people and neither do I”.

In addition, if someone who is poor visits our services we tend to shun them. Why? Because they look like bums and the truth is most of them are bums.

We had a poor guy attend services one Sunday evening recently. He was looking for $65 to buy clothes for a new job he was starting. He had been out of prison for 30 days for writing a bad check.

I told him that we have a lot of bums coming around looking for handouts. He started telling me his story again and I interrupted him and told him all the bums have good stories. I continued by telling him that Parkway was an extremely generous congregation but our primary thing was leading people to Christ through the study of the Bible. I told him if he would attend the services and dedicate himself to Bible study and get to know people that he would be overwhelmed with our generosity. I gave him everything in my wallet… $23.00. He assured me he would be at the next service. That was about four weeks ago and I’ve never seen him again.

I was taken advantage of, that’s OK… they took advantage of Jesus too and for $23.00 I got to give some good advice.

Proverbs 19:17. He who is kind to the poor lends to the LORD, and he will reward him for what he has done.

Jesus is going to pay that $23.00 back to me… maybe a little extra.

What tends to happen when we deal with a lot of bums is that we assume everyone is a bum and we try to avoid them or pass them off to someone else. The problem with that assumption is that we may miss out on an opportunity to help someone who is truly needy. Also, you miss the opportunity to teach and give advice to the bum. What’s an acceptable ratio? How many bums do I have to help before I find one person who was truly in need… 99:1? Or do I stop at 3. Three bums and I’m done.

Proverbs 28:27. He who gives to the poor will lack nothing, but he who closes his eyes to them receives many curses.

Proverbs 21:13. If a man shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, he too will cry out and not be answered.

There are great blessings that God will give us for helping the poor.

Proverbs 22:9. A generous man will himself be blessed, for he shares his food with the poor.

Proverbs 28:8. He who increases his wealth by exorbitant interest amasses it for another, who will be kind to the poor.

When we help the poor we are really helping ourselves.