Giving money to the poor

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Heaveniswaiting

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I was just wondering…say you want to help out the homeless…there is the physical act of volunteering, like giving out food to them out on the streets with your own money and there is also just donating your money to them but not the actual physical act of volunteering…would these 2 be the same in the eyes of god?
 
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I would think that depends on your state in life. If there is an opportunity offered to help physically and you don’t do it, is not the same as someone that is unable to help due to their health, their responsibilities etc, that makes a monetary donation. Money is good, but sometimes, help is needed other than money. Time visiting, compassion, physical help that requires driving, or helping to move are sometimes more important than “just money.”
 
Not everybody is able to physically volunteer.
And frankly, the volunteer organizations that help the homeless don’t WANT everybody to physically volunteer. They can only handle so many volunteers and around here they will usually have groups (such as a church group) scheduled to come in for one day and help, then next week it’s a different group, etc.
Even people who do things on their own like go around and feed the homeless have sometimes been stopped from doing that because their activities are causing problems for others in the neighborhood and keeping the homeless from going to places for food that are also designed to help them with other aspects of their lives, like try to get them into mental health care.

So it would be pretty unfair for God to say that one had to physically volunteer in order for the good work to “count”.
What he actually cares about is what’s in your heart, like are you giving the money because you actually care about the homeless, or just to look good to other people that you made a big donation. That sort of thing.
 
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I totally agree with you, Bear, that is why I said it really depends on one’s state in life. Obviously if one is in poor health, has a family, etc, they are unable to help physically. And there are things we contribute to across the country or world that we are not going to hop on a plane to go help with.
 
I would never recommend giving money directly to a person unless you can monitor how they’ll spend it. Instead, maybe either donate some money to a local church where they live since they usually know who really needs to help, or maybe take them to a restaurant and give the money to the manager there so as to have them feed the person who’s asked you to help.
 
Look to the parable of the Good Samaritan.

Good Sam did not hand some sandwiches and a few coins to the man beside the road. Good Sam took the man to a shelter and gave them a generous donation with the promise of more donations if they were needed.

Find a good org in your town, they can stretch that $5 in ways you would never imagine
 
I think spending time rather than money is much more valuable and God (as well as the homeless person) puts a high value on that. Having said that, giving money which you saved through denying ourselves something we really wanted but is not essential carries also a high merit.

I never forgot the passage from the Bible of the widow who gave so little to the temple, but which represented much of what she had. Jesus praised her, so God looks also at the effort and sacrifices we needed to do to give to the poor, not just the amount per se.
 
I once called our local food bank and offered to volunteer my services in whatever ways they needed. The lady I spoke to, who ran the place, was so nasty to me on the phone that I never called there, again.

Some of these organizations actually drive people away because their staff is so rude to folks who just want to help in good faith.
 
I sort of felt that way about decorating our church for Christmas. I did end up helping, but it was clear that the same people had always been doing it, and doing it a certain way. I was told there was a group of people already going to do the decorating, but, “of course I could come, everyone is welcome.” But it was not a very welcoming group. And as they decorated, there was a lot of complaining about things… I probably won’t go again, I have found other things to work on at church.
 
NEVER PASS UP THE OPPORTUNITY TO FULFILL A TEACHING

We ought to remember that our Creator will take care of all His children. I see the poor as an opportunity to fulfill our Teacher’s instructions of “give to all who ask.”
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If they want money, then I always give them some.
 
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JanR said:
Some of these organizations actually drive people away because their staff is so rude to folks who just want to help in good faith.
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That to me is a sure sign that they do not want more people to help. I’ve seen this kind of attitude with various charity organizations before, there are a lot of reasons for it ranging from a bias against certain types of volunteers, to people who are angling to get paid positions with the agency and the presence of too much volunteer help messes that up.

I suppose it’s also possible that the people working at these organizations have had bad experiences with some volunteers in the past and have become less than welcoming as a result.
 
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