Morning, March 17, edited from Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening

“Remember the poor.” — Galatians 2:10

Why 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 around 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 endure want, he allows them to endure in poverty and obscurity. Why is this? There are many reasons: one is, to give us, who are favored 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 with need in the world we should lose the precious privilege of demonstrating our love, by ministering in alms-giving to our poorer brothers; he has ordained that accordingly we should prove that our love stands 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, “to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.” Surely this assurance is important enough, and this motive strong enough to lead us to help others with a willing hand and a loving heart—remembering that all we do for his people is graciously accepted by Christ as done to himself.