poor on Debt

One of the most challenging and complex economic realities faced by many of our neighbors who live paycheck to paycheck is finding financial resources to cover immediate and unexpected expenses. To ad...

Introduction  Luke 16:1-13 isn’t an easy parable to preach on. It looks for all the world like Jesus is commending a guy who’s basically a dishonest rascal. You will sometimes see interpreters tying ...

Introduction  Luke 16:1-13 isn’t an easy parable to preach on. It looks for all the world like Jesus is commending a guy who’s basically a dishonest rascal. You will sometimes see interpreters tying ...

Hence, whatever certain people have in superabundance is due, by natural law, to the purpose of succoring the poor.

Poverty of spirit is the personal acknowledgement of spiritual bankruptcy. It is a conscious confession of unworth before God. As such, it is the deepest form of repentance.

What’s the biggest misconception Christians have about giving? That when we give money away to a church or ministry, or to help the needy, it’s gone. While we hope others will benefit from it, we’re q...

Surrender your poverty and acknowledge your nothingness to the Lord. Whether you understand it or not, God loves you, is present in you, lives in you, dwells in you, calls you, saves you, and offers y...

When we listen to and follow Jesus, who lived in continual dependence on his Father, we become convinced of our poverty as men and women. We realize our absolute neediness. We are all beggars. Father ...

By describing his disciples as poor in spirit, Jesus points to their relationship with God. Their poverty has touched their inmost being so that they now depend entirely upon God.

We have conducted the previous exercise in dozens of middle-to-upper-class, predominantly Caucasian, North American churches. In the vast majority of cases, these audiences describe poverty differentl...

[A] rock-star preaches capitalism. Wow. Sometimes I hear myself and I just can’t believe it. But commerce is real. . . . Aid is just a stopgap. Commerce—entrepreneurial capitalism—takes more people ou...

The world says: "You have needs — satisfy them. You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. Don't hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more." This ...

A true prayer is an inventory of needs, a catalog of necessities, an exposure of secret wounds, a revelation of hidden poverty.

When I don’t have any [food to bring my family], I borrow, mainly from neighbors and friends. I feel ashamed standing before my children when I have nothing to help feed the family. I’m not well when ...

Eternal God, our judge and redeemer, we confess that we have tried to hide from You, for we have done wrong. We have lived for ourselves, and apart from You. We have turned from our neighbors and refu...

Leader: Heavenly Father, I confess that I have sinned against you. I have delighted my soul in other things more than I have in you. Why, then, is it any surprise to me that you feel far off from me? ...

The honest poor can sometimes forget poverty. The honest rich can never forget it.

[The poor have] a feeling of powerlessness and an inability to make themselves heard.

Idolatry is when you become the source of your own joy. Poverty of spirit is a wonderful thing.

We cannot know the inheritance of God without identifying with the poor in spirit, without the poverty that says, “I am naked and poor and wretched and I need a Savior or I’ll die. I’m desperate for y...

Some kind of loss is usually necessary to turn the mind toward faith. If you’re satisfied with want you’ve got, you’re hardly going to look for anything better.

Merciful God, we confess that we have not loved you with our whole heart. We have failed to be an obedient church. We have not done your will, we have broken your law, we have rebelled against your lo...

One Sunday, an usher brought to me an offering plate holding a bacon biscuit that a college student had deposited in the morning offering. A little note attached said, “Silver and gold have I none, bu...

Our life of poverty is as necessary as the work itself. Only in heaven will we see how much we owe to the poor for helping us to love God better because of them.

Nor, indeed, can a man properly be said to save anything, if he only lays it up. You may as well throw your money into the sea, as bury it in the earth. And you may as well bury it in the earth, as in...

Father God, too often we show preference to those who appear to have it all together, to those whom we consider complete: the self-motivated, self-made, and self-sufficient. We honor the rich and look...

Russell Conwell, founder of Temple University and half the namesake of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, was an American minister who began his ministry in 1880. While he wrote and preached countle...

Contentment makes much of little; greed makes little of much. Contentment is the poor man’s riches and desire the rich man’s poverty.

There is a helplessness in poverty that precedes the move of God in our lives because we understand an aspect of grace that so many miss: we do nothing to earn it. When we understand this, all becomes...

All: Gracious God, we have become callous to those in need, holding back compassion yet unsparing with judgment. We defend our motivations, rather than using all you have given us to love and care for...