POVERTY

When I traveled through a series of snow-covered Asian villages, I saw what happens when severe poverty turns simple illness into almost certain death. We met people and heard stories of men, women, and children who had died or were dying of preventable diseases. One village we passed had recently experienced a cholera outbreak. Up to sixty people had died in a matter of weeks because of a simple stomach infection due to impure water and poor hygiene. In case you read quickly over that last sentence, that’s a huge portion of an entire community who died of diarrhea.

On the same day I was walking through these villages, I read in Luke 10 Jesus’ summary of all God’s commandments to his people: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself” (verse 27). That last phrase jumped off the page in light of the picture I was seeing. “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

As myself?

I wondered what I would want someone to do for me if I lived in one of these villages. Wouldn’t I want somebody to help me? Or what if it were my kids or the children in my church dying of preventable diseases? What if half your children or my children were dying before they turned eight? If this were us, or if this were our kids, or if this were the children in our churches, we would do something. Ignoring such urgent needs simply would not be an option.

Yet this is exactly what so many of us in the Western church have done. We have insulated and isolated ourselves from the massive material poverty that surrounds us in the world. We have filled our lives and our churches with more comforts for us, all while turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to abject poverty in others. We need our eyes opened to the implications of the gospel for how we live.

PRAY

Ask God to:

• Intervene on behalf of the poor, both close to home and around the world.
• Soften your heart to identify with the poor and work for their good.
• Reveal ways that you can live on less in order to give more to those who need it.

PARTICIPATE

Prayerfully consider taking these steps:

• Investigate local ministries that are involved in serving the poor in your community, and ask how you or your church body can partner with them.
• Look at your budget. Are there any luxuries you can sacrifice in order to have more resources to give to those in need?
• Make a list of your talents and assets, and consider the global needs you are aware of. Is there any place where your resources and the world’s needs intersect?

PROCLAIM

Consider the following truths from Scripture:

• Acts 20:35, NIV: “In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”
• 2 Corinthians 8:9: “You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.”
• 1 John 3:17: “If anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?”

For more (and more specific) suggestions, visit CounterCultureBook.com/Poverty.