God’s Heart For The PoorSample

Neighborly Kindness

Irony. Yes, it’s ironic that those who need friends don’t have them. The rich are generally surrounded by friends, but the poor often go without helpful relationships. Why? There are numerous reasons, but one is that it can be costly to be a friend of someone who is poor.

This verse says very bluntly that it is a sin to despise your neighbor by failing to help them. How can we be kind to the needy?

• We can offer a relationship to someone who is in need. Those in need are often without friends. We can go out of our way to help befriend someone who needs it most.
• We can refuse to despise our neighbor. The word “despise” is often used in the sense of cheating someone, but the cheating doesn’t have to be physical. It can also be emotional. Do we look down on our neighbors who are poorer than us as somehow less intelligent or less driven? That is also despising our neighbor.

  Kindness to our neighbors can go a long way to sharing God’s love with them. What can you do to show God’s kindness and love to a needy neighbor today? According to Proverbs 14, you will be blessed!