Five devotions to help you share God’s love for the poor

Links to all devotions in the series
1. Ownership
2. Power to help
3. Help for the poor
4. Love in action
5. Love’s reward 

Devotion 1: Ownership

Read

To the Lord your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it.
Deuteronomy 10:14

1 The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it,
the world, and all who live in it;
2 for he founded it on the seas
and established it on the waters.
Psalm 24:1-2

26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?
Matthew 6:26

Consider

Even though some of these passages are poetic, it is clear that everything means every thing. Look around where you are. Name some items. They belong to God. And even things you cannot see – colours, sounds, ideas. Can you name something that is not his? It’s impossible! And that means even things that have a person’s name on it still belong to God.

God is a good and loving God. He cares for all that he has made. He is not distant nor indifferent to his creation. Even the smallest bird is in his reach. And if he cares for the birds, then how much more will he care for you!

It is freeing knowing that every thing ultimately belongs to God. It means we have a loving heavenly Father who gives us just what we need – our daily bread. And we can be generous with what he has entrusted to us, because he is faithful and the storehouse of his riches is immense. We only see glimpses of his riches in this life. In the new creation we will experience fully.

Question

1. How does it make you feel to know that everything you have is not actually yours, but belongs to God? Your money? Your time? Your life?

2. When are you most tempted to forget that God owns all things?

Pray

Loving Father, you have made a wondrous world, and it all rightly belongs to you. May I be content with the daily bread you provide. As you have been generous to me, may I be generous to others, not clinging to things but to you.
Amen.