GIF The Caring Business

“You shall freely open your hand to your brother, to your needy and poor in your land.”
Deuteronomy 15:11

The Caring Business
by Larry Burkett

Many years ago, when Davy Crockett was a congressman, a bill was brought before the Congress to help a widow of an American war hero because she was totally indigent.

Davy Crockett stood in that meeting and said, “I will, under no circumstances, vote money from the taxpayers of America to help this lady. It is not the role of the government to care for the needs of people. And when the people of this country begin to treat this government like it is their friend, we shall lose our freedoms.”

He went on to say, “Though I will vote no money from the government treasury to help her, I will personally share from my bounty in her time of need, if others in this honored body will do the same.”

What is the principle here? The government should not care for the needs of people; the people were always meant to do so.

This is the same principle we read in God’s Word that says, “Share with others in your time of plenty so that when you have needs others will share from their plenty” (paraphrase of 2 Corinthians 8:14).

If the body of Christ doesn’t voluntarily begin to accept the needs of other people and share with them, God may involuntarily involve us by letting us experience the same needs.

We have allowed the government to get in the caring business and people depend far more on the government to care for their needs than they do on the body of Christ.

God wants to direct our attention back to the source of all material things: Himself. The only way people in need are ever going to sense that God is their source is by God’s people becoming their source.

Is there someone you can help today?

“They have drawn near and have come. Each one helps his neighbor and says to his brother, ‘Be strong!’ ” (Isaiah 41:5-6).

Daily Scripture Reading:
James