How Can We Be like Jesus Helping the Poor?

“Whoever despises his neighbor sins; but he who has mercy on the poor, happy is he” says Proverbs 14:21. God’s Word tells us that the poor will always be with us.¹ This doesn’t mean we can ignore the problem. Scripture is clear that caring for the poor is honoring to God.² Let’s examine what God’s Word tells us about Jesus helping the poor.

Jesus, in responding to John the Baptist’s question about if He was the Savior, said,

“Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”³

This gives an idea of where to start in being Jesus to the poor of the world. He wants us to help the poor and the suffering in practical ways and bring them the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The second instruction we are given is from Jesus’s half-brother, James, In his epistle, he talks much about how we treat the poor. There is a tendency to favor the wealthy, and James forbade this as Christians.⁴ But he goes on to be very pointed in what our actions should be, too.

James 2:15-17 says,

“If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”