"Remember the poor."—Galatians 2:10.
HY 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; He could send
them a large annual income; or He could scatter round their houses
abundance of provisions, as once he made the quails lie in heaps round
the camp of Israel, and rained bread out of 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 bring all
their power and riches to the feet of His children, for the hearts of
all men are in His control. But He does not choose to do so; He allows
them to suffer want, He allows them to pine in penury and obscurity. Why
is this? There are many reasons: one is,
to give us, who are favoured with enough, an opportunity of showing 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 sons of need in the world we should lose the sweet
privilege of evidencing our love, by ministering in alms-giving to His
poorer brethren; He has ordained that thus we should prove that our love
standeth not in word only, but in deed and in truth. If we truly love
Christ, we shall care for those who are loved by Him. 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—recollecting that all
we do for His people is graciously accepted by Christ as done to
Himself.
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