HH, Sir Godfrey Gregg D.Div
“For the poor shall never cease out of the land: therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land.” Deuteronomy 15:11
And well is it for me that I have the poor always with me? They bless me a hundredfold more than I am able to bless them. I am ennobled by their presence. Deprived of the poor, I become spiritually poor myself.
They keep the Angel of Tenderness in my fellowship. If there were not so many poor around me to awaken my compassion and pity — if the world were all a smiling and untroubled and fertile world — how harsh I should grow, and how cold, and how self-absorbed!
And they keep the Angel of Helpfulness in my company. Their necessities are a constant call to me to rouse myself and go and support them. They bid me open my hand and give. They teach me the sweet and Christlike luxury of doing good. They enrich my days in service and ministry.
And they keep the Angel of Gratefulness in my secret soul. They are a continual parable, never out of my sight, of my own spiritual poverty — how I was myself a bond slave to sin and the devil, and how the Lord my God redeemed me. So I remember, day by day, my indebtedness to Him.
Yes, for my own sake let me thank God that the poor do not cease from the land. And let me not serve them grudgingly nor of necessity, for the Lord loves a cheerful giver.
