The Treasures In Heaven.3

"There is no generosity in giving to those who can easily repay. Even misers lend money when they are certain of being repaid in full. Give to those who appear before you in need, to the destitute with no hope of repaying your gift. Practice forgiveness, even if such persons take advantage of your kind acts." 

--Jesus

Years ago, a ministerial I was associated with had a protocol to deal with the Neediness of the Needy.  If it was for food we sent them to the church that housed the food pantry, if the request was for rooming, we sent them to a local motel and paid the tab. Same for clothing, rides, etc.  It was an efficient way to deal with the "chronically" needy who often "abused" the system without wanting to really get any help. And, honestly, it was a lot easier than actually having to be personally responsible for people who did not seem capable of or cared enough to be personally responsible for themselves...
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Social media exploded recently over the story of a Minnesota dentist who hunted and killed an African lion affectionately known as "Cecil."  The uproar and subsequent destruction of this man's livelihood dwarfed the exposure of taxpayer funded Planned Parenthood's nefarious & grotesque practice of selling aborted baby parts.  

Why would our culture be more concerned about a lion, thousands of miles away, than real people being slaughtered, butchered and bought right in our backyard?  Matt Walsh, cultural commentator, offers these thoughts:

"People, on the other hand, are real. They are here. They impose themselves on our lives. They burden us. They surround us. To care about people is hard. It requires us to live, act, think, and speak differently. We have to accommodate people. We have to tolerate people. We have to do things for people, especially the most vulnerable and helpless people. It’s no coincidence that progressivism advocates abortion to deal with children, and euthanasia to handle the old and the infirm. If it is going to pretend to love human beings at all, it must first get rid of the most burdensome types. 
It can be hard to love people. And if you say you love people, life is going to constantly demand that you prove it. If you say you love people, you certainly can’t kill your own child, and you can’t support the killing of children, and even if you don’t have kids, you have to be patient and kind with other people’s kids, and other people generally. This is very different from loving lions. You can love lions passively, in the abstract; people must be loved actively, in reality.      
 This is the progressive modus operandi. Progressivism loves everything that can be loved lazily or indulgently, and nothing that must be loved sacrificially and earnestly. It loves nothing that requires any action on its part.
Put more simply, it loves nothing.
But it will keep pretending anyway."-Matt Walsh, http://themattwalshblog.com/2015/07/29/sometimes-its-easier-to-care-about-dead-lions-than-dead-people/

Personal generosity is a difficult thing.  But practicing it is more than about helping another person, it is about fighting for our collective humanity, dignity and worth!  The cross of Christ shows it is something worth fighting for!

"Little children, 

let us not love in word or talk 

but in deed and in truth."  

-John, the Beloved Disciple, 1 John 3:18