Fear No Fear

“Blessed are those who consider the poor; the Lord will deliver them in the day of trouble.” (Psalm 41:1,  MEV). God has a heart for the poor. God doesn’t WANT there to be any poor. But He knows the hardness of heart that humanity exercises, so He knows we will always have poor among us (Matthew 26:11). That is the selfishness of humanity at work. But it does NOT change God’s heart. He wants us to NEVER decrease (Psalm 23:1). He wants us to ALWAYS increase – no matter what our starting point is. He isn’t going to reach down and do it for us. We have a responsibility to DO (Genesis 1:28-29; 2:8). This is where HE put us. To tend it. To steward it. Dominion is NOT domination. It’s authoritative, not dictatorial. We have a responsibility to care for those who are poor. To care for them and to give them opportunity, training, and support so that they can improve their lives through work and be poor no more. We’re all here to work. It’s the mechanism by which we exercise our authority. This is the same heart the early church had too: “Only they requested that we should remember the poor, which I also was eager to do” (Galatians 2:10, MEV). If we just toss money at the poor, we’re not enabling them to help themselves. If we ignore them, we’re not being good stewards. We need to do for them what Jesus does for us: help them become better as they learn to stand on their own two feet and prosper in all areas of life as God leads them. Then they can help us do it for others too. And so on. And so on. THAT is dominion. THAT is stewardship. THAT is the heart of God.