What is Helpful?

When you see someone in need do you ever ask yourself what you can do to truly help them? We are faced with lots of needs all around us. We have needs, our immediate family has needs, our extended family and our friends have needs, those we work with have needs, those in our community have needs, people all across the world have needs. No matter how far or how close you extend the "circle" of influence, you will see or encounter needs. While these needs can be easy to spot (although sometimes we confuse wants for needs) how to truly help eliminate the needs is not always so clear cut. Many times rather than really meeting the need, we simply put a band aid over it, we treat the symptoms. How do we get to the root, how do we truly help? Should we even help? Are we actually helping or are we just enabling? Obviously the answer is different depending on the need, the individual(s) and the resources that we have.

While many of the variables change from situation to situation, I believe that it is clear in the Bible that we are to help those in need. James 1:27 says that; "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress...". Matthew 25:40 says; 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers or mine, you did for me.' Jesus gave specific examples just before this of what "doing for the least of these looked like". It looked like; giving food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, hospitality to the stranger, clothes to the clothes less, care for the sick and visitation to the prisoner.

I think everybody would want these things lived out if they were in the situation of being hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, etc. For some reason though, the opposite is not always (or even frequently) true. Many people feel that by giving food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, hospitality to the stranger, clothes to the naked, care for the sick and visitation to the prisoner, that we are simply enabling them to stay that way. Unfortunately, they are right. Sometimes! I don't pretend to know where that line is. All I know is that I don't want to be face to face with Jesus someday and hear what he said in Matthew 25:45, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'

A good friend of mine once said to me that if he is going to make a mistake, he wants to make it on the side of God. I agree! In other words, I would rather live out Matthew 25:40 so much that I actually end up enabling people to stay needy than to do the opposite and not help them. This week I would like to challenge you to Live 25:40.