Helping Those in Need

On our way home from church yesterday we were talking about putting ourselves in other peoples shoes. We came around to the topic of helping those in need. Do we have an obligation to help the poor if they got themselves into the situation they are in? What if they are drug addicts or convicted felons? What if they take advantage of our “generosity”? What if they aren't in need at all and are just trying to get something for nothing?

Over the years I've heard people complain about how those on food stamps, on WIC or on welfare don't deserve or appreciate the help they get. While that is true in some cases it is by far not the norm. Just like in the news we always hear the bad stories, but so often, we don't hear the good.

I know of people who have taken advantage of the governmental handouts. People who didn't qualify for assistance in the first place who took what was not right for them to take. I have also known people to take advantage of the assistance of church food/clothing banks.

I have also known people who were in desperate need who were helped by these same programs. People who when they were no longer in desperate need chose to give into these programs, to pass it on I guess you could say. Because they had found themselves in a difficult situation they were able to see that there are others in need.

If you've never spent the night on the streets you may not be able to identify with the homeless. If you've never had to send your child to bed hungry then it may be hard for you to understand the pain of that parent. But you can still have feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else's misfortune. Sympathy is a natural and beneficial part of the human experience.

Proverbs 19:17 says,

Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord,

and he will reward them for what they have done.

So how do we choose who to have pity and sorrow for? After all there really are people out there who don't “deserve” it right? Well, I can only answer this through the filter of my Christian experience. Jesus has shown us how to treat the poor, both the deserving and the undeserving.

It is not so hard to have sympathy for the “deserving”, but the “undeserving” is more difficult to have sympathy for. We want to say of the undeserving, they deserve what they got... and we want to use Galatians 6:7 (Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. ) as our proof that we are off the hook for helping these undeserving individuals. But the truth is we are all undeserving of God's love, forgiveness, mercy and grace.

When we look at others through the eyes of Jesus, everything changes. It no longer matters if that person is thankful for the gift we have given them. We are not giving it to them, but rather our Lord and we know that He will bless us in more ways then we can comprehend. We also know that He will use that gift to further His love, forgiveness, mercy and grace toward that person. It no longer matters if that person got themselves into their problem, because we know that God is in the forgiving business. We no longer have to be concerned with people taking advantage of our generosity, because we know that God will work it out to our good no matter the intentions of others.

It is when we look at our brothers and sisters through the eyes of Jesus that we can do more then just have sympathy for our neighbors, but we can truly have empathy for them. Having the ability to understand and share the feelings of another is of far greater value to the believer. When we have empathy we step out of our own human experience and step into God's experience. Isn't that what every believer wants? That is to become more and more like Jesus.

God looked down on His creation and seeing our need He sent His son Jesus to rescue us. When we chose to allow ourselves to become vulnerable, to being taken advantage of, we step closer to the image of Christ in us. When we choose to help others we follow the example that Jesus set for us. What better thing could we possibly do with our lives?