When It's In Your Power To Do So
Proverbs 3:27-35 Amplified Bible (emphasis added)
27 Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due [its rightful recipients], When it is in your power to do it. 28 Do not say to your neighbor, “Go, and come back, And tomorrow I will give it,” When you have it with you. 29 Do not devise evil against your neighbor, who lives securely beside you. 30 Do not quarrel with a man without cause, if he has done you no harm.31 Do not envy a man of violence and do not choose any of his ways. 32 For the devious are repulsive to the Lord; but His private counsel is with the upright [those with spiritual integrity and moral courage]. 33 The curse of the Lord is on the house of the wicked, but He blesses the home of the just and righteous. 34 Though He scoffs at the scoffers and scorns the scorners, yet He gives His grace [His undeserved favor] to the humble [those who give up self-importance]. 35 The wise will inherit honor and glory, but dishonor and shame is conferred on fools.
Have you ever seen someone who was clearly in need, begging on the street? Have you ever had money or food when seeing such a person and you warred within yourself on whether or not the person was deserving of your dollar or lunch?
This is a common and ethical example. But let’s think about something on a smaller scale. How many times do we have the opportunity to help someone, and we are capable of helping them and we choose not to? It does not have to be a financial or homeless matter:
It could be an encouraging word to someone having a bad day;
It could be giving a pencil to the person in class with no school supplies;
It could be donating the clothes that you are hoarding in your closet.
Our kindness is how God shows Himself to those who would never otherwise see His love. A wise woman shared with me that “everything the Lord does in the Earth, He does it through people”.
James 2:14-17 AMP
14 What is the benefit, my fellow believers, if someone claims to have faith but has no [good] works [as evidence]? Can that [kind of] faith save him? [No, a mere claim of faith is not sufficient—genuine faith produces good works.] 15 If a brother or sister is without [adequate] clothing and lacks [enough] food for each day, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace [with my blessing], [keep] warm and feed yourselves,” but he does not give them the necessities for the body, what good does that do? 17 So too, faith, if it does not have works [to back it up], is by itself dead [inoperative and ineffective].
Matthew 5:14-16 AMP
14 “You are the light of [Christ to] the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; 15 nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. 16 Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good deeds and moral excellence, and [recognize and honor and] glorify your Father who is in heaven.
Based on scripture, the Lord delights in those who help others when they can. When we help others, it glorifies God and may even bring them to salvation because a kind action is indicative of the Fruit of the Spirit and Holy Spirit dwelling in you. It is important to note to use wisdom. We know that unfortunately, there are those who prey on the kindness of others, so always use discernment.
If we realize that helping people goes beyond the monetary and can be even ministering to others, we can thwart the forces of the enemy and even be blessed ourselves. For example, when Rebekah gave Abraham’s servant a drink of water, she was doing it in good hospitality. It ended up blessing her because she met her husband, Isaac, as a result of that encounter (see Genesis 24). Think of the Parable of the Good Samaritan; that man went above and beyond to help someone because he had the means (see Luke 10:25-37). Or maybe the most salient example of all is what Jesus did for us on the cross. He could have easily forfeited the cause because it made HIm uncomfortable, yet His sacrifice is what has reconciled us back to the Father. If you have a gift that you do not use for the cause of Christ, you are in disobedience because you can help and choose not to.
Let’s look at one last example, but this time, let us look at someone who refused to help when they had the power to help:
1 Samuel 25: 2- AMP
Nabal and Abigail
2 Now there was a man in Maon whose business and possessions were in Carmel; and the man was very rich. He had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats, and he was shearing his sheep in Carmel 3 (now the man’s name was Nabal and his wife’s name was Abigail. She was intelligent and beautiful in appearance, but the man was harsh and evil in his dealings; he was a Calebite). 4 David heard in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing his sheep. 5 So David sent ten young men; and David said to the young men, “Go up to Carmel and go to Nabal, and greet him in my name; 6 and this is what you shall say, ‘Have a long life! Peace be to you, and peace to your house, and peace to all that you have. 7 Now I have heard that you have shearers. Now your shepherds have been with us and we have not harmed them, nor were they missing anything all the time they were in Carmel. 8 Ask your young men and they will tell you. Therefore let my young men find favor in your sight [and be well-treated], for we have come on a [d]good (festive) day. Please, give whatever you find at hand to your servants and to your son David.’”
9 When David’s young men came, they spoke to Nabal according to all these words in the name of David; then they waited. 10 But Nabal answered David’s servants and said, “Who is David? And who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants today, each of whom is breaking away from his master. 11 So should I take my bread and my water and my meat that I have slaughtered for my shearers, and give it to men when I do not know where they are from?” 12 So David’s young men made their way back and returned; and they came and told him everything that was said [to them by Nabal]. 13 David said to his men, “Each man put on your sword.” So each man put on his sword. David also put on his sword, and about four hundred men went up behind David while two hundred stayed back with the provisions and supplies.
14 But one of Nabal’s young men told Abigail, Nabal’s wife, “Listen, David sent messengers out of the wilderness to bless (greet) our master, and he shouted at them [in contempt]. 15 But David’s men were very good to us, and we were not harmed or treated badly, nor did we miss anything as long as we were with them, when we were in the fields. 16 They were a wall [of protection] to us both night and day, all the time that we were with them tending the sheep. 17 Now then, know this and consider what you should do, for evil is [already] planned against our master and against all his household; but he is such a worthless and wicked man that one cannot speak [reasonably] to him.”
Abigail Intercedes
18 Then Abigail hurried and took two hundred loaves of bread, two jugs of wine, five sheep already prepared [for roasting], five measures of roasted grain, a hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs, and loaded them on donkeys. 19 She said to her young men (servants), “Go on ahead of me; behold, I am coming after you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal. 20 It happened that as she was riding on her donkey and coming down by [way of] the hidden part of the mountain, that suddenly David and his men were coming down toward her, and she met them. 21 Now David had said, “Surely in vain I have protected and guarded all that this man has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missing of all that belonged to him; and he has repaid me evil for good. 22 May God do so to the enemies of David, and more also, if by morning I leave [alive] even one male of any who belong to him.”
23 When Abigail saw David, she hurried and dismounted from the donkey, and kneeled face downward before David and bowed down to the ground [in respect]. 24 Kneeling at his feet she said, “My lord, let the blame and guilt be on me alone. And please let your maidservant speak to you, and listen to the words of your maidservant. 25 Please do not let my lord pay attention to this worthless man, Nabal, for as his name is, so is he. Nabal (fool) is his name and foolishness (stupidity) is with him; but I your maidservant did not see my lord’s young men whom you sent.
26 So now, my lord, as the Lord lives, and as your soul lives, since the Lord has prevented you from shedding blood, and from avenging yourself by your own hand, now then let your enemies and those who seek to do evil to my lord, be as [self-destructive as] Nabal. 27 Now this gift, which your maidservant has brought my lord, let it be given to the young men who accompany and follow my lord. 28 Please forgive the transgression of your maidservant; for the Lord will certainly make my lord a secure and enduring house, because my lord is fighting the battles of the Lord, and evil will not be found in you all your days. 29 Should anyone rise up to pursue you and to seek your life, then the life of my lord will be bound in the [precious] bundle of the living with the Lord your God; but the lives of your enemies—those He will hurl out as from the center of a sling. 30 And it will happen when the Lord does for my lord according to all the good that He has spoken (promised) concerning you, and appoints you ruler over Israel, 31 that this [incident] will not cause grief or [bring] a troubled conscience to my lord, both by having shed blood without cause and by my lord having avenged himself. When the Lord deals well with my lord, then remember [with favor] your maidservant.”
32 David said to Abigail, “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who sent you to meet me this day. 33 And blessed be your discretion and discernment, and blessed be you, who has kept me from bloodshed this day and from avenging myself by my own hand. 34 Nevertheless, as the Lord the God of Israel lives, who has prevented me from harming you, if you had not come quickly to meet me, most certainly by the morning light there would not have been left to Nabal so much as one male.” 35 So David accepted what she had brought to him and said to her, “Go up to your house in peace. See, I have listened to you and have granted your request.”
36 Then Abigail came to Nabal, and he was holding a feast in his house [for the shearers], like the feast of a king. And Nabal’s mood was joyous because he was very drunk; so she told him nothing at all until the morning light. 37 But in the morning, when Nabal was sober, and his wife told him these things, his heart died within him and he became [paralyzed and helpless] like a stone. 38 About ten days later, the Lord struck Nabal and he died.
From this account, we can glean that Nabal had a hardened heart and scoffed at the idea of helping King David. David did not take kindly to such inhospitable remarks that he sought in his heart to kill Nabal. (Yikes!) Abigail, Nabal’s wife, who was a wise and kind woman used her hospitality to deter David from his murderous plot. While it stopped David from killing Nabal, Nabal still died from the Lord striking him. While the Bible does not tell us this, I imagine that to be as bitter and stubborn as Nabal, being mean to David had not been his first rodeo of purposefully not helping someone. But it surely was his last time.
Friends, I implore you to not be so quick to be unkind and give excuses as to why you cannot or will not help. As Proverbs says, help when it is in your power to do so!
Ask the Lord to help you show His Love through kindness and service:
Lord, I come humbly to you and ask that You would help me to be kind, gentle, and meek. Father, help my heart of stone soften toward Your Creation and help when it is in my power to do so. Please bless me so that I can be a blessing to other people and let my kindness be an opening for someone to learn of You. In Jesus’ name, Amen.