Though he was rich, yet for
your sakes he became poor.
—2 Corinthians 8:9
Police reporter Jacob Riis worked the impoverished ghettos of New York City. His personal experience of poverty—surviving on scavenged food and sleeping in foul-smelling public areas—combined with his observation of the poor in the city slums, led him to publish How the Other Half Lives.
Riis’s words and photographs of Gotham’s misery were unnerving. Shortly after the release of the book, he received this note from a young politician: “I have read your book, and I have come to help. —Theodore Roosevelt.”
Paul wrote: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich” (2 Cor 8:9).
In other words: “I’ve seen your spiritual poverty, and I’ve come to help. —Jesus.”
Don’t turn a deaf ear to poverty—
either physical or spiritual.