Sins of the Church Against the Needy

The Lord has been trying to bring me to the truth about giving for years. On many occasions, He prompted me to take what I would have normally put in the offering plate at church and give it directly to someone in need. I love giving like that! Still, in the absence of specific giving instructions from the Lord, I never questioned the common practice of giving everything to the church, whereupon I trusted the church to administer my gifts. That is until the day the Lord had me witness an abomination that left me nauseous.

In the main office of a church I attended years ago, I was fixing a computer one Friday morning. Two young black women, with 3 adorable children dressed in their Sunday best, came into the office to ask for a food donation. The 3 secretaries of our all white upper middle class church stared at them, and finally one said nervously "our deacon of benevolence is in the office on Thursday afternoons – can I make an appointment for you next Thursday?" One of the women pleaded "We can’t wait a week, we need food now". The secretary repeated her offer, and I became sick to my stomach. I left quickly and drove a mile up the road to a cash machine and came directly back to the church only to find that the 2 women and 3 children had left empty handed. The staff did not know where they had gone, and I returned to my car and wept. I felt as if I had failed but the Lord said "you did not fail son, the church failed".

Since that first eye-opening experience, the Lord has shown me many more sins of the church against the poor that have left me ill. One church considered installing an air conditioning system for which several members had pledged $35,000 while another member of the church who was wheelchair bound from advanced multiple sclerosis didn’t have enough money to buy food at the end of the month with what little state aid she received. Often she was forced to chose between food, medicine or heat in winter. For many months my wife and I gave to her anonymously and when she went to be with the Lord last winter, she was at peace – the kind of peace that only acts of love can bring ( 1 John 3:18, James 1:22 ). As she was relieved of her financial stress, she blessed everyone around her with unquenchable joy. Most importantly, she taught us about right giving.

More recently, I attended a conference where the host appealed to the audience to give "an offering for the poor". I heard the Lord say "the poor are among you" ( Mark 14:7 ) and immediately I thought of a dear friend in attendance who is experiencing financial difficulties and had recently lost her home. The next day I began a letter to the host saying "Last night you took an offering from the poor" . I groaned at the error and started to rip the page from my notebook when the Lord said "that is not an error – last night’s offering was taken from the poor".

The Lord then brought to mind the parable of the sheep and goats, specifically Matthew 25:40 where it says "whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me". The words "these brothers of mine" had not made an impression on me before, and the Lord brought me to the understanding that our first obligation to the poor is to the poor within the Body of Christ. The Lord then brought Matthew 15:26 to mind wherein Jesus said "It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs".

The early church had a much better understanding of Christ’s intent to care for the needs of the Body of Christ than we do today. The proof of their caring for each other can be seen in Acts 2:44-47 and Acts 4:32-37 where the Body of Christ shared everything, and through their giving, they eliminated poverty and indebtedness. In fact, Acts 4:34 says "there were no needy persons among them!" Taking up offerings to feed the Body of Christ was common in the early church. In Acts 11:27-30, the Gentile church at Antioch took up an offering for the believers in Judea who were experiencing a time of famine. Can you imagine a church today taking up an offering for a cross-town rival?

How did the church get so far off course?

Source

Goshen360: We have been collecting money from ourselves as a church to build monuments and personal empire. It's time to start collecting money for the saints (people) of God. Ask yourself, when was the last time collections was gathered for people in need when you go on Sunday Sunday Worship? Collections in the early church was never done for building monuments but for building people.