Giving Part 2 ... God's Heart

It goes without saying that God's heart goes out to us. Especially, when He sees us in a sinful, lost, and seperated from Him condition. God gave His absolute best when He gave His only Son on the cross.
Now, since I said that...I'm talking about giving from the perspective of our wealth, substance and resources. So where is God's Heart in all this giving. Later I will blog about your part being the tithe....but today I have learned there is a group of people we can give our money, time and resources to that pronounces God's blessing.
I want to take you back about five to six years ago. Our church was experiencing rapid growth numerically, financially and spiritually. That was the time we were committed to reaching out primarily to the lower income areas of our community. I was embraced by the community and often ridculed by church people. People would come to our church fall in love with the vision until they saw the amount of work involved. Til they really went to a church (like ours) that wasn't talking about reaching homeless, drug addicts, trouble youth, prostitute, other races and the working poor BUT WE WERE DOING IT. We had drunk people on the back pew passing out. Prostitutes coming forward at the conclusion of messages about sexual purity. I will never forget a lady that God "told her" to come to our church. Her and her family came to the church were a blessing, but after a short while God lead her and her family away because we ministered to the poor. I will never forget the day she told me that she was sick of hearing about the poor...that she was poor (she just built a high dollar house in a high dollar community). Where I failed was as I saw people come and go with her attitude I began to back off that vision. WHEN WE STOPPED MINISTERING TO THE POOR OUR RAPID GROWTH SLOWED TREMENDOUSLY.
Let me share a scripture that reveals the heart of God...remember this is just one of many
Psalm 41:1-4 "Blessed are those that consider the poor. For the Lord rescues them in times of trouble. The Lord protects them and keeps them alive. He gives them prosperity and rescues them from their enemies. The Lord nurses them when they are sick and eases their pain and discomfort." I encourage you to read several translations of this verse...all of them bring out many great angles for reflection. The Old Testament is full of judgement upon those who mistreated the poor. Scriptures tells us when we give to the poor that we are lending to God...imagine His interest rate. We are told when we help the homeless, visit the sick, go into prisons with the gospel, feed the hungry, provide refreshing drinks, clothe the necked (southern for naked), and help the least that we are actually doing it to Christ. WOW! Hallelujah...ministering to our Savior!
I have not mentioned this in some time. I was up early this morning praying and I really felt as if the Lord wanted me to blog about this because....are you ready...we need to get back to that type of ministry. Is anyone out there interested?