Do Something

​If I say that I want to see more hands reaching out and feeding the hungry, more feet carrying the gospel to the lost, more cheeks covered with tears for the mourning and hurting –
I better not be found lounging when the opportunity comes for me to show the way through sacrifice and faith in God to provide and bless those who provide for others. 
Helping others has very little to do with “deserve”. We are called to be perfect like our Father in heaven who sends rain on both the just and the unjust. 

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you this: Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you. In this way you show that you are children of your Father in heaven. He makes his sun rise on people whether they are good or evil. He lets rain fall on them whether they are just or unjust. If you love those who love you, do you deserve a reward? Even the tax collectors do that! Are you doing anything remarkable if you welcome only your friends? Everyone does that! That is why you must be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.

Matthew 5:43‭-‬48 GW

I have heard (and have used myself) the excuse of whether or not someone “deserves” help. Or I’ve ask myself,  “but if I help this real person requesting help, there might not be enough for me to help another theoretical person that REALLY NEEDS IT.” How foolish are we to protect for a maybe by withholding and denying the real opportunity to love in front of us. 

What comfortable lies we tell ourselves – but do we not trust our heavenly Father to provide? Do we not trust Him to bless us even through our making due with less — or bless us in our humble pleading with others once we have ourselves given to our absolute limits — or bless us by providing the means through us to meet every need? Or do we love our stuff, our things, our wants more than we love those who have needs. 

Lord, show us our treachery so that we might repent. 
Proverbs 19:17 ESV

Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will repay him for his deed.
Hebrews 13:16 ESV

Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.
Acts 20:35 ESV

In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”
“The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways. The Lord will command the blessing on you in your barns and in all that you undertake. And he will bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. The Lord will establish you as a people holy to himself, as he has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in his ways. And all the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the Lord , and they shall be afraid of you. And the Lord will make you abound in prosperity, in the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your livestock and in the fruit of your ground, within the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to give you. The Lord will open to you his good treasury, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hands. And you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. And the Lord will make you the head and not the tail, and you shall only go up and not down, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, being careful to do them, and if you do not turn aside from any of the words that I command you today, to the right hand or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.

Deuteronomy 28:7‭-‬14 ESV
Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.

Malachi 3:10 ESV
What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

James 2:14‭-‬17 ESV