May 18

“But ye have despised the poor…” James 2:6

Poverty, though not of itself a disease, may be seen as an affliction of pandemic proportions in the human race. It is rarely something a person may consciously or purposely choose. While it is true that an individual’s conduct may contribute to and ultimately bring about his poverty and undoing, overall it is safe to say that poverty is a condition experienced by a large portion of humanity, and over which they have little or no control. It is at this level that our text makes its exhortation to our hearts. It is a fact of human behaviour that a difference of preference and partiality, is made towards the status (real or perceived) of any one particular person we may meet. Poor people and rich people exist equally all over the world and are treated differently, as if their financial status actually gives them more or less worth as a person! We may all rationalise that this is not correct, but in our natural response to individuals, we all mostly fall into the same trap of attributing the quality of our attention, interest, service to people, in line with what we perceive their ‘status’ to be. Tests have been conducted by richer individuals, purposely dressing down to look as paupers, to verify this inbuilt human negligence, and see how differently they were treated by those they met. We are very much geared to what our eyes see and what we perceive of people, and to that degree we give them trust, attention and place. Sadly this oddity continues to plague us as believers also. In fact to some degree we may be even guiltier of this neglect, for another dimension is added to us when we are Christians. There is such thing as spiritual poverty. Those who are not yet converted are spiritually afflicted, lacking, and in need. It is true to say that not only from a physical, financial standpoint, but also from a spiritual one, we can lack in the kind of love required of us, to give and support our fellow man, without regards to his status! If meeting the need of a financially poor person means sharing our financial wealth with them, then meeting the need of a spiritually impoverished individual, means sharing our spiritual wealth with them! Yet it is at this level that we can fail, and despise those around us, forgetting that without Jesus, and what He has provided for us spiritually and physically, we would be no better than the person we are viewing! Such despising or as the text implies, preferential treatment of others, is deemed sin before God, something we must repent of and desist from! May the Lord help us to never be guilty of despising the poor, but rather stretch forth a helping hand, whether we perceive them to be needy in a socio-economic sense or in the even more relevant spiritual sense of soul poverty.

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