James 1:27 – Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
To do this is to love as God loves. It is to do for another with no expectation of being paid back. God did that for us when Jesus came to die for us. He gave us what we can never repay
Isaiah 1:17 – Learn to do right, seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.
The eyes of God are on the poor who are unable, for whatever reason, to help themselves. Any and all persons who are mentally or physically or emotionally unable to help themselves are loved by God. Why doesn’t He do something about it? He has. He put His Spirit in us and His love in us and sent us to be His hand to the poor. He blessed us with the intention that we would also bless others. Family, if we don’t have the love of God within us then clearly we don’t belong to God (1 John 4:8).
Proverbs 28:27 – Those who give to the poor will lack nothing, but those who close their eyes to them receive many curses.
God will bless those who pour His love and riches on the poor, but clearly those who will not, for whatever reason they manufacture, remain outside of grace because their greed and lack of faith are a wall they cannot pass. The love of God is not in them.
Deuteronomy – If anyone is poor among your fellow Israelites in any of the towns of the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward them. Rather, be openhanded and freely lend them whatever they need.
God has said to not to be hardhearted and close our fist toward the poor. He calls us to love and be generous and at the least to lend them “whatever they need.” Think about it. Those who reason again generosity reason against their own soul.
Luke 14:14 – Then Jesus said to his host . . . When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.
Those dirty, smelling and wretched, or just downcast people are not below any of us. In God’s eyes we were all dirty, smelling and wretched and yet He still He loved us, washed us, and called us His own. If the essence of God, His Holy Spirit, is not being lived out in our lives, if our hearts are hard and if we refuse to soften, then we are in grave danger. Remember that those who will not give mercy, who will not forgive, who are unloving and not generous, who think that the grace of God is impotent against their wiles to elude what God expects of us, they will fall into a snare they have set. Galatians 6:7 “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.” What goes around comes around. If we have no compassion and mercy for the poor and needy, then the love of God is not within and we should not expect compassion and mercy from Him.
1 John 3:17 – If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
If a hornet’s nest is disturbed then hornets come rushing out. If a container of honey is opened then honey will come out. What is in our hearts flows out. It is honey and not hornets that must rush out from hearts. It is a proof to ourselves that our hearts are right with God.
Jeremiah 17:10 – I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.
I pray that the Lord will search my heart and find within it what pleases Him. (Psalm 139:23-24)
And what convicts me is Luke 12:32-34 “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. 33 Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. 34 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
Do we do enough? Do our churches give with the reasoning of man or with the heart of God? Is our level of loving the poor pleasing to God! If not let’s pray that He change our hearts. May our most prized riches be in Heaven and not here on earth? And that, to the glory of God!
Lastly we are not talking about working for salvation. We are talking about proof of salvation within us.
Psalm 150:6 – Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord!
Micah 7:7 – But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me.
Micah 6:8 – He has shown You, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of You but to do justly, to love mercy, And to walk humbly with Your God.
Numbers 6:24-26 “The Lord bless you and keep you; 25 the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you; 26 the Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace.”