Pride goes before a fall, and God hates the proud; hence He humbles them to teach them His decrees. Yet people do not understand what God truly wants to do in their own lives and in the lives of others, and they become a stumbling block in God’s classroom — never realising what they are really doing, thinking instead that they are serving others according to God’s desire. This is what Jesus had in mind in His parable:
The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.
Matthew 25:40 (NIV)
With our sinful nature, we further drag down the downtrodden through our words and the way we treat them. Yet, once we read this part of the parable, we stretch ourselves to go the extra mile in helping them by every means to please God— thereby preventing them from listening to God, who humbled them for a greater purpose.
Opportunities To Do Good
Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter —
when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Isaiah 58:7 (NIV)
There are two kinds of needy people on this earth: those who genuinely need something to eat in order to survive, and those who have everything to eat, but are, for a period, deprived of it by God so that it may be replaced with something of His. Jesus explained that the former kind of people will be with us throughout our lifetime on this earth.
The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me.
Matthew 26:11 (NIV)
God has already given each of us a family, a household, a measure of resources — and He asks us to steward what we already have, doing good as far as it lies within our means. He has not called every believer to abandon their household in the name of service; rather, He has called us not to close the door when the opportunity to do good is placed directly before us. We often miss this kind of opportunity, simply because we do not recognise what it looks like when God places it before us.
Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.
Galatians 6:10 (NIV)
Often it is not dramatic. A relative who has fallen on hard times. A neighbour going without food. A friend who has been out of contact and quietly needs help. These are not accidents — they are opportunities God brings near enough for us to reach, and they do not stay open forever. The time for helping someone may last three years, one year, or only two months. If we let the window close without acting, God does not wait for us; He moves directly, and we lose the privilege of having been part of it. Too often, when this chance arrives, the response is not compassion but complaint — questions about whose responsibility it should be, or resentment stirred up between families over who ought to be doing the helping.
Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.
Matthew 7:17-18 (NIV)
This test is not abstract — it plays out in exactly these moments. If we are truly children of God, the fruit that comes out when the opportunity arrives will be good. If instead we shut the door, argue, or turn away, we are producing the fruit of a different root. We tell ourselves it is too hard to be like Jesus, too much to expect of us, and use that as an excuse to do nothing at all — when what God is actually asking for is far simpler than we make it out to be: use what has already been placed before you.
Food For Listening: The Word Of God
The latter group of needy people are those who want to hear the voice of God and apply it in their lives — and for this reason, they are unable to fill their stomachs with what they have in plenty at their respective homes. This happened to a group of keen listeners who had travelled far from home and were left with nothing to eat. The disciples of Jesus urged Him to stop giving them His Word, so that they might depart and reach their homes to satisfy their hunger.
Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”
Matthew 14:16 (NIV)
This pattern is strictly followed today in our house prayer meetings, in order to feed well those who attend. Over time, however, this practice has changed, as people now conduct prayer meetings to feasting with their guests, and hearing the Word of God has lost its place. The hosts instead complain about the behaviour of Jesus at the house of Lazarus — that He did not tell Mary to help Martha in serving food to the guests. They side with Martha, who tried to prevent Mary from listening to Jesus.
In the feeding of the five thousand, there were no provisions for the people to have food in the place where they had gathered. Likewise, in the vicinity of Lazarus’s house, there may not have been enough resources to provide food for the guests. Despite this, Jesus insisted that Mary listen to His Word, and did not encourage Martha’s hospitality.
But in today’s context, there are plenty of places that provide food to people. If we are coming home late from a movie theatre, there are restaurants where we can happily have our meal. Sometimes, because of other commitments, we are far from home and cannot reach it for lunch or dinner; even then, there are places where we can eat and satisfy our hunger. Even hospitals have food courts to provide meals, and people do eat after diligently attending to treatment from their respective doctors. These provisions are there to satisfy patients’ hunger while they spend long hours from registration to waiting for their doctors.
Yet in the vicinity where prayer meetings are conducted, people’s eyes seem blind to the places that could cater food to them. Instead, they are interested in eating at the prayer meeting itself — neither listening to the Word themselves nor letting others listen, as like Martha, they are busy catering to all the attendees.
Spending Ourselves for the Hungry
and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.
Isaiah 58:10 (NIV)
God begins with physical hunger, but He is not only speaking of bread. There is a hunger in people who do not yet know God — a hunger for the bread of life and the water that truly satisfies. Feeding that hunger means bringing them into contact with Christ Himself, the true bread and the living water, not merely believing they are in need of physical and fiscal help.
In ancient days itself, God applied this pattern over the people whom He delivered from their slavery and as people full of liberty when they began to enjoy life, God stuck them again and humbled them not as an act of punishment but to chasten them.
He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.
Deuteronomy 8:3 (NIV)
Helping Those Who Are Humbled By God
The irony here is that the same people who hesitated to help the needy, and were afraid to become philanthropists, now become generous givers toward those whom God has withheld some luxury from, in order to show them the importance of the Living Word, the Manna. These people, thinking they are pleasing God by helping in this way, actually stop the needy from relying on God and learning His precepts. Instead, the needy become satisfied with the temporary help extended by fellow believers, and come to rely on them completely, forsaking their God.
By doing so, we are not allowing God to accomplish His purpose in their lives; instead, we exploit their weakness to earn rewards from our Father God. What is truly required is that we first learn to rely on Him ourselves when He humbles us, so that through personal experience we can guide those whom God has humbled to rely on Him more and more, rather than expecting temporary help from man. God warns those who place their trust entirely in man rather than in Him.
This is what the LORD says: “Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who draws strength from mere flesh
and whose heart turns away from the LORD.
Jeremiah 17:5 (NIV)
Instead of making them stronger in their faith, we are weakening it by leading them to trust in evidences, and thereby making them worthy to receive curses from God. Despite the circumstances, if we learn to lead those who have been humbled by God Himself, our light will shine in the darkness, and we will transform the night into daylight (Isaiah 58:10b). Jesus reiterated this in His Sermon on the Mount, in the following verse:
let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.
Matthew 5:16 (NIV)
This verse is often misread as a call to earn favour through good deeds — as though doing enough good works is what causes God to notice us. It is, in fact, the opposite. Good deeds are the overflow of what God has already removed from us; they are not the means by which we earn His attention.
Satisfying the Hunger of The People Whose Faith is Weak
Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters.
Romans 14:1 (NIV)
Those who are weak in faith, who do not yet understand that their sins are forgiven, need to be received into fellowship — not kept at a distance while we debate why they struggle. The outcome of our debate is that we attribute their weak faith to a lack of blessing, healing, or deliverance from bondage. With this mistaken view, we encourage those who are weak in faith to come to our church to receive what they lack. This is the most common technique elders use to bring people of other faiths into the fold of God. Unfortunately, the technique they intend for the benefit of newcomers works in the opposite way: when newcomers do not receive what was promised to them, they depart from the church fellowship and never return.
The other area in which we fail to glorify God is by placing ourselves on the same level as unbelievers in their suffering, so as to comfort them and make them feel we are sailing in the same boat. We are saved by the grace of God, yet we sail alongside people who believe their salvation depends on their own deeds — and they, in turn, regard us as pathetic, since we seem not even to know the reason for our own suffering, which they attribute to their deeds. The lesson for us from this attitude of unbelievers is that we should never try to encourage them by saying we too have problems like theirs, so that they feel less alone. Instead, we should tell them that we have far greater problems than they do, yet we have our Saviour with us, leading us in peace through those problems. This is how we show light to those who dwell in darkness.
We should not quarrel over disputable matters, such as reliance on karma or the worship of idols, but should live a life standing firmly on the Word of God—making a difference to those who watch us so that, despite the problems we face, they see that we have a God who nullifies all our troubles and gives us peace. In a nutshell, we should not rely on miracles and testimonies to bring others into the fold of God, but should become a testimony to them by walking with God at all times.
Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.
John 14:23 (NIV)
Our preoccupation with the affairs of this world often dulls our appetite for the Manna God provides through His Word. It is only when our appetite for that Manna is restored that we can truly help those who are weak in faith — for God, in His wisdom, sometimes withholds the fullness of His provision for a period, precisely so that hunger for His Word might increase. We cannot cure others’ unbelief, but we can ask God to strengthen our own, so that the Author and Finisher of our faith may accomplish His purpose in our lives — to gather people into His fold.
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