A Heart for the Poor

As I wait here at the Miami airport for my flight to Atlanta, I got thinking about Haiti, the poor and my own situation.  Here I sit, in a comfy chair, in an air-conditioned terminal with all the food I can buy.  I have to say I have everything I need.  But it also reminds me of what my brothers and sisters in Haiti don’t have.  It is not guilt that it instills in me but rather thankfulness.  Look at what God has done!

“Like nothing else could ever do, the gospel instills in me a heart for the downcast, the poverty-stricken, and those in need of physical mercies, especially when such persons are of the household of faith.

When I see persons who are materially poor, I instantly feel a kinship with them, for they are physically what I was spiritually when my heart was closed to Christ.  Perhaps some of them are in their condition because of sin, but so was I.  Perhaps they are unkind when I try to help them; but I, too, have been spiteful to God when He has sought to help me.  Perhaps they are thankless and even abuse the kindness I show them, but how many times have I been thankless and used what God has given me to serve selfish ends?

Perhaps a poverty-stricken person will be blessed and changed as a result of some kindness I show him.  If so, God be praised for His grace through me.  But if the person walks away unchanged by my kindness, then I still rejoice over the opportunity to love as God loves.  Perhaps the person will repent in time; but for now, my heart is chastened and made wiser by the tangible depiction of what I myself have done to God on numerous occasions.

The gospel reminds me daily of the spiritual poverty into which I was born and also the staggering generosity of Christ towards me.  Such reminders instill in me both a felt connection to the poor and a desire to show them the same generosity that has been lavished on me.  When ministering to the poor with these motivations, I not only preach the gospel to them through word and deed, but I reenact the gospel to my own benefit as well.”

A Gospel Primer for Christians by Milton Vincent (Focus Publishing, 2008)