[Monday's Devotional] - The Issue of Poverty

Poverty During the past few months there has been a lot of attention to poverty in the UK.  Poverty is something we should not take for granted, neither should we be misinformed.  "An end to poverty" sounds like a good bullet point for a political party, but in reality poverty will never disappear, and the poor will always be present in this world due to conflict, greed and climatic change. On the occasion when Mary anointed Jesus' feet with pure nard (a very expensive perfume), Judas Iscariot was apparently critical of the waste of money which he claimed could have been used for the poor, Jesus replied by saying: You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.  John 12:8 [NIV] In saying this he was echoing Deuteronomy: There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land.  Deuteronomy 15: 11 [NIV] Can you take the opportunity to be openhanded today, or this week?  What does poverty mean in the UK, or in Mozambique?  Who can you help that is a needy neighbour?  We may not be able to end poverty (but the rate of  extreme poverty has dropped dramatically over the past 100 years) but we must still do whatever we can to work towards that goal. You might be interested to read more about extreme poverty. Dave MacLellan   Twitter Website Copyright © 2017 St. Matthew & St. Oswald's Church, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email as a subscriber to the Daily Devotionals Our mailing address is: St. Matthew & St. Oswald's Church 1a New Street Rugby, Warwickshire CV22 7BE United Kingdom Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list Want to be added to our mailing list? - sign up here!