Poverty is a terrible state of existence and few, if any, who read these lines will ever know the depth of its devastation.  We are a privileged people indeed to be able to pay for that which we desire.  We are doubly blessed when there is discipline expressed toward the things we want.  We receive a triple blessing when, out of the context of our own affluency, we share generously with those in need.

There are some spiritual lessons for us to learn from those caught in the throes of financial poverty.  They remind us not only of our need to share, but they remind us of our need to be humble.  No Christian can gloat in his or her prosperity as long as there are those who live without the necessities of life.  Humility toward that which we have will always produce sacrificial giving.

We also learn from those in need a lesson about our soul's deficiency.  The shattering devastation of financial poverty is but a parable of the kind of spiritual destitution we have before God.  We are nothing and we have nothing without Him.  Only in Christ Jesus can we know the wealth of His love and the riches of His grace.  Only as we humbly place our prosperity in the context of God's holy will can we know what Jesus meant when He said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God." With pure motivations we trust in God to give us the desires of our hearts.