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 3: Help for the poor

Read

19 When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. 20 When you beat the olives from your trees, do not go over the branches a second time. Leave what remains for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow. 21 When you harvest the grapes in your vineyard, do not go over the vines again. Leave what remains for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow.
Deuteronomy 24:19-21

Sing to God, sing in praise of his name,
extol him who rides on the clouds;
rejoice before him—his name is the Lord.
5 A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows,
is God in his holy dwelling.
6 God sets the lonely in families,
he leads out the prisoners with singing;
but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.

Psalm 68:4-6

Consider

Poverty is more than just a lack of money. In the Old Testament, the poor are those who are disconnected from community and the land, typified by the people like the widow, the orphan and the foreigner. What these people lack is not just money or possessions, but key relationships. So the Bible gives solutions to poverty in relational terms through which blessings are received – the lonely have a family, the widow has a defender, the foreigner has access to the land.

In areas where whole communities are living in desperate poverty, the Christian community can be a powerful agent of change. Armed with the gospel of Jesus, bound together with bonds of loving fellowship, and backed by the generous resourcing and prayerful support of brothers and sisters from far away, the local church can truly love the poor in every sense – materially, relationally, spiritually. This holistic care reflects what God has done for his people.

Question

1. A recognition of our spiritual poverty before God is necessary to accept the saving help he provides through Jesus. Take a moment to reflect on the relational aspects of material poverty to better understand our spiritual poverty.
2. Consider some people you know who may have enough financially, but are poor relationally. What does loving the poor look like for them?

Pray

Creator God, you have made humanity to live in relationship with you and with each other. Thank you for the opportunities you have given your people to love their neighbours. Please continue to equip and strengthen the body of Christ to play their part in loving the poor. Help me to see the full extent of poverty around me, and equip me to love others deeply.
Amen.