REPOST Today’s AMI QT Devotional is a reprint of Kate Moon’s blog originally posted on December 27, 2014.  Kate continues to serve the Lord in E. Asia. 

Spiritual Food for Thought for the Weekend

“Justice for the Poor”

Proverbs 29:7

“The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern.”

When was the last time you thought about justice for the poor?  What would it mean to have this kind of concern?  If this kind of concern is a quality of the righteous, is it something we need to be more intentional about cultivating?

One of the great things about the holiday season is that there is often a heightened awareness regarding helping those less fortunate.  At Thanksgiving, there are concerted efforts to provide food for the hungry.  As the weather gets colder, we donate coats and blankets.  At Christmas, we especially remember the children. I remember one year participating in sending gifts to children of incarcerated parents; I had never thought there could be this kind of need, but on hearing about the program, I realized, of course it would be difficult for a parent in jail to send a gift to his or her child, though they may very much wish they could.

In addition to physical or material needs, today we are reminded of another need that the poor have – the need for justice.  The poor are more easily taken advantage of as they have fewer resources to defend themselves or even fight for the same chances.  I once heard about wealthy parents who arranged for their child to spend time helping out at an orphanage they supported financially.  I was impressed that they were teaching their child such values until I later heard that these same parents were considering bribing the child into the college of their choice, never thinking about the inconsistency of how this meant that their child may be unfairly taking the spot of the more qualified orphans from the very institution they supported who were applying to the same college. 

In light of such things happening in our society, how can we, the righteous in Christ Jesus, be more concerned about the injustices that the poor can suffer?  It is a challenge for the majority of us who are far removed from such circumstances, whether physically by the neighborhoods in which we live, or socio-economically by the circles in which we move.  Because we don’t see the poor literally, it is harder for us to see them metaphorically, to see their needs and to care.

Though it is a challenge, as the Bible tells us that this is a quality that the righteous have, let’s consider today what we can do to cultivate this kind of concern.  Let’s consider what we can do.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, give me a heart for the poor.  Help me to have compassion for the lowly and the downtrodden.  Amen. 

Bible Reading for Today: Jeremiah 30-31