Pray and Give | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 25, 1871

Pray and Give.

“THY prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God.” Acts 10 : 4.

A practical philanthropist, who picks drunkards out of the mire, gets them washed and clothed, and restored to their right minds, once visited a poor widow on a cold winter day. “Have faith in Christ,” said one, “he will help you.” Quoth the practical man, “It is not faith in Christ she lacks; she has as much of that as you or I; it is wood she stands in need of. Her faith will not save her with the thermometer at zero. Do you think the Saviour will come and tip up two feet of wood at her door? No such thing. She has got faith, but wants fire-wood.”

The missionary went his way; there was no more that he could do. The practical man had the wood there in an hour.

We are taught in the Bible to pray for the poor; but in the Scriptures a great deal more is said about giving to the poor than about praying for them. Probably no class of people are more frequently remembered in prayer than the congregation of the Lord’s poor; and yet it is to be feared that most of those who pray for the poor, do but little, if anything, to supply their wants.

A farmer, whose cribs were full of corn, was accustomed to pray that the wants of the needy might be supplied; but when any one in needy circumstances asked for a little of his corn, he said he had none to spare. “One day, after hearing his father pray for the poor and needy, his little son said to him: ‘Father, I wish I had your corn.’”

“Why, my son, what could you do with it?” asked the father. The child replied: “I would answer your prayers.”

We can answer our own prayers oftener than we think. With regard to the poor, Jesus says: “Ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good.” How many answers to prayer depend on our willingness to do good!