Just sayin'

  

 Proverbs 28:27

Those who give to the poor will lack nothing, but those who close their eyes to them receive many curses.

 

 

We are all guilty of doing it. 

You see a person sitting outside of a liquor store, hand out, asking for money. What's your first thought? Honestly? 

You can say you don't think it, but you know you do, we all do. Christian or not, it creeps into our head. 

"If I give them money, they are going to turn right around, walk in that store and buy a bottle of something" So we walk on. 

We assume we know what other people think and feel and do because maybe that's what we would think and feel and do.  

Or maybe we don't want to give, so we come up with excuses to stop from feeling guilty about it when that conviction hits.

But that's not how we are called to act. With this attitude we are making ourselves judge and jury of another human being.

Mathew 7:1-2

7 Judge not, that ye be not judged.

² For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

 It's not our place to judge what a needy person needs. It's actually none of our business what someone does with money after it's given to them. Even if you lend to a friend, a family member, what they do with that money, once it is given, is not your business. If they tell you they need to pay a power bill and take that money and go to the casino, that's not your business. Though there is a lesson learned there. (I'm not that generous) lol

 I always raised my kids this way, even before I became a practicing Christian. You do what is right in your heart to do, you don't answer for what someone else does. If you see someone begging, give them money. You did the right thing, for the right reason. If they take that money and go buy drugs or liquor, that's on them, you don't answer for that,(and no excuses about enabling)  you answer for giving them the money in their necessity.  It's not your place, nor mine, to judge that necessity. 

Hebrews 13:2
² Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

 

Proverbs 11:25 
A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.

1 John 3:17
If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. 
That last part, there is the meat of it isn't it?
If we walk around professing the love of Christ, sounding out what a good Christian we are but don't show the love of Christ, well, that makes us Christians in name only doesn't it.

Will walking past an outstretched hand without even so much as a glance send  you to hell? No, no it won't. But it does show how far you really are from the hands that were stretched out and nailed on a cross for you.
Just sayin'