Poor is the New Royalty

We've begun to treat the poor like royalty. They are revered, pampered, defended if challenged or spoke ill against.

Politicians and government leaders use "the poor" to advance their agendas, espousing compassion, all the while leaving them in squalor.

If one chooses not to vote for extended benefits to the poor, he or she is vilified and railed, accused of being evil and without compassion.

I was in college during the first Feed the World video. I was for it and glad to see celebrities using their platform and talent to focus on the hungry.

Yet, 25 years later those people groups and nations are still hungry. Hand outs to corrupt, large governments do not find it's way to the truly needy. If it does, the effects are short lived. It's like trying to stop a flood while putting a finger in one hole in the dam.

The world gasped when an earthquake devastated Haiti. We felt for the wounded and dead, but my friends, Haiti has been in pain and death for decades. They have more than 60% unemployment. The disenfranchised cried out, "Where is God?"

Now? Because they had an earthquake? Where was God in the midst of their poverty? When disease and hunger took the children? When political dissonant were tortured and killed.

We have a very narrow margin of the poor, of the needy, of how and when God should intervene. He should prevent earthquakes, but not the death of the unborn?

We can do nothing for the poor if we continue to hand them things. Instead, free up their countries to develop agriculture and industry. Free them up from old suspicions that keep them bound in medieval myth. Teach them to fish. Don't give them a fish. Tomorrow they'll be hungry again.

Above all, bring to the poor Jesus. We can build them houses, feed them meals, give them clothes but if we do not give them Jesus, they will be poor in this life and destroyed in the next.

Justice is needed! But only Jesus can bring true justice. Apart from Him, our work is wood, hay and stubble.

Let's not make the poor the new royalty -- elevating them for our own sense of moral justice and superiority. Let's bring them Jesus. Bring them life.

Best Selling and award winning author Rachel Hauck lives in central Florida with her husband. She is a graduate of the Ohio State University and has traveled internationally as a software trainer.

But, writing is her love, and she hopes to spread the fragrance of Jesus with her words.

Her current release Love Starts With Elle from Thomas Nelson is a 2009 RITA Finalist. Her book Sweet Caroline was American Christian Fiction Writers Book of the Year 2009. Her next release, "The Sweet By and By" with platinum selling country artist Sara Evans releases January 2010. Check out all of her books and musings on her web site at www.rachelhauck.com.