March 17, Morning

C. H. Spurgeon · Modern retelling

"Remember the poor." — Galatians 2:10 · KJV

Why does God allow so many of His children to be poor? He could make them all rich if He pleased; He could lay bags of gold at their doors, send them a large yearly income, or scatter abundance of provisions around their houses, as once He made the quails lie in heaps around the camp of Israel and rained bread from heaven to feed them. There is no necessity that they should be poor, except that He sees it to be best. "The cattle upon a thousand hills are His" — He could supply them; He could make the richest, the greatest, and the mightiest lay all their power and wealth at His children's feet, for the hearts of all men are in His control. But He does not choose to; He allows them to suffer want, to pine in poverty and obscurity. Why is this? There are many reasons. One is to give us who are favored with enough an opportunity to show our love to Jesus. We show our love to Christ when we sing of Him and when we pray to Him; but if there were no needy ones in the world, we would lose the sweet privilege of proving our love by ministering in almsgiving to His poorer brethren. He has ordained that thus we should prove our love stands not in word only, but in deed and in truth. If we truly love Christ, we shall care for those whom He loves; those who are dear to Him will be dear to us. Let us, then, look upon it not as a duty but as a privilege to relieve the poor of the Lord's flock, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." Surely this assurance is sweet enough, and this motive strong enough, to lead us to help others with a willing hand and a loving heart, remembering that all we do for His people is graciously accepted by Christ as done to Himself.