Most of our Christian service to the poor is based on giving and not equipping. I’m not sure why we have taken this approach because that is not the example we see in Scripture. God always made man do everything that was within his abilities. God always required man to work to care for his own needs. There were no hand-outs in God’s Plan. Below is a short example of God’s requirement when a hand-out would have been much easier.

In Genesis 6, we read that mankind had grown wicked and all their schemes were evil all the time. God was fed up. He decided He was going to destroy all living things from the face of the earth. He was going to wipe the plate clean and start over, but not completely. There was one man that God would save.

But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD. These are the family records of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among his contemporaries; Noah walked with God. (Gen. 6:8-9 HCSB)

God would start over with Noah, but how did God do this? He flooded the entire earth and destroyed every living thing, but saved Noah and his family. God could have made it easy on Noah. He could have had Noah go into the woods, where he would find a big boat that was filled with all the food and supplies he would need. The boat would have been completely ready to go. All Noah would need to do is load up and ride out the storm.

God could have had all the tools drop-shipped to Noah’s front porch. He could have had the materials delivered to the side yard. That’s the way it happened in the Hollywood movie, but that is not what God did. God worked within the Plan that He had established in the garden. Noah had to do the work himself.

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