ALMS DEEDS, PRAYER,
FASTING AND FAITH
In this section I am going to scrutinize offerings and alms deeds. Alms
deeds are commonly referred to as acts of charity, which is now the modern-day
equivalent of that word since language is not static but is dynamic. In this
chapter
I am going to discuss alms deeds (charitable deeds). Organisations that
are created for the sole purpose of distributing alms are often referred to as
charitable organisations or benevolent or aid organisations. To avoid any
confusion with the word love (also referred to in the King James Version of the
Bible as charity) I will deliberately use the word alms throughout this
chapter. I have decided to start with alms because they link very well with the
purpose for tithing.
Alms must come from the deep inside of the heart or soul and not from
outside. They must not be deeds designed to show off to the outside world. They
are not supposed to be acts of impressing our religious friends or to show how
religious we are. They must begin from the depths of the heart. The Lord said,
‘now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter; but
your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness. Ye fools did not he that
made that which is without make that which is within also? But rather give alms
of such things as ye have; and behold all things are clean to you.’ Luke 11:39
– 42. In verse 42 immediately after the above statement he attacked fraudulent
tithing which subject we covered in the previous section of this book thereby
making a smooth link with this section. Here the Lord makes it clear that alms
deeds are not an outside show but a matter of conscience of the heart. These
acts must be acts of righteousness designed to please the Lord of heaven and
earth, the Almighty God and the giver of all things that are good and pleasing
to our spirits, souls and bodies.
Unlike tithes that are given through an intermediary (normally a
priest), alms are a matter between God and an individual. Each individual gives
directly to the needy not to attract public attention. Alms giving, I am glad
to announce, like prayer is an individual act not intended to attract public
approval but the approval that comes from above. The only publicity that alms
receive in public, like prayer, is the blessing of the Lord, which is bestowed
in public and broad day light for all to see. In his doctrine, the king of
kings taught, ‘take heed that ye do not your alms before men to be seen of
them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore,
when thou doest thine alms do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the
hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of
men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. But when thou doest alms
let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: that thine alms may be in
secret: and thy father who sees in secret himself shall reward thee openly. And
when you pray thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray
standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be
seen of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. But thou, when thou
prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy
father who is in secret, and thy father who sees in secret shall reward thee
openly.’ Mathew 6:1-6.
In simple language, prayer and alms deeds are a secret act done to
impress the Lord. Alms deeds and prayer have always been partners and share the
same core principle. Uncompromisingly time and again alms deeds have acted as a
catalyst of answers to prayer because, as I have just pointed out, prayer and
alms giving are indissoluble partners. To Cornelius, the angel said, ‘thy
prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God.’ Luke reports in
Acts 10:1-4 that this Cornelius was ‘a devout man, who feared God with all his
house, who gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God always.’ Even the
Father in his doctrine taught that alms deeds and prayer are teammates
extremely difficult to separate. We are all aware that we often add weight to
prayer by fasting but are equally not aware that fasting that lacks alms deeds
is half backed. In his doctrine the Almighty said in Isaiah 58: 2-7, ‘they seek
me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and
forsook not the ordinances of their God: they ask of me the ordinances of
justice; they take delight in approaching to God. Wherefore have we fasted, say
they, and thou seest not? Wherefore have we afflicted our souls and thou takest
no knowledge? Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure and exact all
your labours, is not this the fast I have chosen? To loose the bonds of
wickedness … and to let the oppressed free? Is it not to deal thy bread to the
hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? When thou
seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thy
own flesh?’
What I am saying, therefore, is that prayer, fasting and alms giving
are private acts executed to impress the Lord alone and not men. The acts are
not even intended to impress the intended beneficiary but the God of the
disadvantaged. The secrecy of the acts is greatly emphasised to the point that
the Lord went to the extent of saying your left hand must not know what your
right hand would have done. Did you ever imagine the embarrassment you would go
through if I met your need during your most desperate moment in life and went
about boasting to everyone that if it were not for my assistance your need
would never have been met? If you can imagine the embarrassment I believe that
you can appreciate the Lord’s insistence on privacy in almsgiving. Somewhere we
read in the New Testament that Judas Issacariot was the Lord’s treasurer and
was therefore responsible for distributing alms but we are not told anywhere of
a single person who received those alms. That explains the secrecy with which
the Lord’s alms deeds were executed. Isn’t that a good and perfect example to
emulate? Do we give out alms to demonstrate to people how religious we are or
do we do it to gratify the Lord? If we do it to fascinate the public eye then
the public reward, which is public admiration, has already been granted and the
Lord has no reason to give us another reward. If we do alms to fulfil the
Lord’s will, in due course we will certainly receive the appropriate reward.
Like prayer, almsgiving is rewarded by the Lord himself and not by men.
If almsgiving is a boost to prayer and fasting it follows that the lack
of it could possibly be a stumbling block to our prayers. One old wise man of
ancient days once said in Proverbs 21: 13, ‘whoso stoppeth his ear at the cry
of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but shall not be heard.’ Concerning the
wicked, the psalmist said, ‘let his prayer become sin … because he did not
remember to show mercy, but persecuted the poor and needy.’
The Master said in John 12:8 that our chance to show mercy and to give
alms to the poor will abundantly be available as long this world is in
existence. Indeed, the poor and the destitute will linger during the entire
existence of this world. We see them every day in our streets and public
places. Have you ever seen a blind poor old destitute seated at one of our
street corners singing a melodious and charismatic Christian hymn not
necessarily in praise and adoration of the Lord but because he wants to capture
the sympathy of passers-by? Did you also ever hear some of our City fathers and
other respected prominent persons in society complain that these blind beggars
have become a nuisance in our beautiful cities? I have read about it in the
newspapers. I have heard it on radio and television. I have also heard it in
private and public places. I have heard some suggesting the solution lies in
denying assistance to the poor beggars because some of the beggars are mere
lazy people not willing to craft a living from hard work.
Our prominent citizens believe that hardships compacted by holding back
alms will drive all vagrants from our streets thereby cleansing the streets of
the abhorred menace.
If you
thought that I am talking about unbelievers alone who have no heart for the
needy, I am afraid you are mistaken. Have we also as believers given a thought as
to why the blind beggars, orphans and the disadvantaged do not congregate at
the gates of our churches and not in the streets? I have heard well-known
preachers and teachers of the New Testament labelling the poor souls accursed
souls or even a bunch of lazy menacing human beings. It is true, I admit, that
there are certain immoral people who take advantage of other peoples’ poverty
and as a result masquerade as needy people so that they may swindle people who
are sympathetic to the disadvantaged by criminal begging but did it also ever
occur to you that mockery of the needy is actually contempt of the living God.
The inspired man of God wrote in Proverbs 17:5, ‘whoso mocketh the poor
reproacheth his maker: and he that is glad at calamities shall not be unpunished.’
If we in concurrence with our leaders and role models are going to deny help to
the deprived, the great God of Israel will himself become a refuge and defence
to the poor bringing to them swift rescue. See Job 34: 28; Isaiah 41: 17 and
Ezekiel 34: 1-3. Never ever think that if you do not emulate Cornelius’ example
the needy will perish, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel will somehow do
what you should have done. When no nation sent aid to the children of Israel in
the wilderness, the God of Abraham literally rained manna. Be reminded that God
once raised a certain poor shepherd boy from the dust of poverty and
insignificance to the throne of Israel and even made him ancestor of the
world’s saviour. So, it is not an impossible thing for the Lord to come to the
poor peoples’ rescue if we resolve to neglect them.
It is reported that at a bus terminus two Christians saw a blind woman
begging for money whilst singing ‘in the sweet by and by’ and one of the
Christians whispered to his companion saying, ‘just hear her sing about the
sweet by and by and not the now and this very present. There is no better
example of lack of faith than this.’ The other retorted, ‘if only she knew
faith, she wouldn’t be begging and would be having sight and in great
prosperity.’ At that point the first excitedly said audibly, ‘she must put her
faith into action and forget about this begging trouble.’ When I heard this I realised
painfully how many of us know very little about faith. It is extremely wrong to
expect someone to believe before we ourselves have believed. Before somebody
puts his faith into action we must activate ours first. The faith which the
above brothers should have set in motion is the brand recorded in James 2: 13 –
17. Giving the needy what they are in need of is true and genuine faith in
action and not criticising others for the lack of faith. Almsgiving is an act
of faith, which every saint must demonstrate.
In his writings, James, the servant of the Lord says in chapter 1 verse
27, ‘Pure religion and undefiled before God and the father is this, to visit
the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted
from the world.’ When you visit an orphan in his misery you are bound to lend
him some help, in other words you engross yourself in some form of spontaneous
alms deeds. In the second chapter of his book James calls such actions putting
one’s faith into action.
Maybe you are wondering why all of a sudden I am jumping from arguing
that alms deeds and prayer are partners to talking about faith. This is because
prayer that God answers is the prayer said in faith. Now when I talk about
faith I do not refer to the kind of faith we only think about and resort to
when we desire something. The Lord says, ‘the just shall live by faith.’ Rom.
1: 17. Faith is a matter of life. To the righteous, faith must be expected like
breathing in life without which it is impossible to live. A body that ceases to
breathe will without delay die. In the same way when a believer drops faith he
ceases to be a believer. We are called believers because we live by faith. It
is that kind of faith, which the Bible says, is impossible to please God
without. I am not referring to a faith we wilfully switch on and off when it
suits us. The type of faith that we apply when we feel like believing for
something and discard when we have nothing to believe for is not at all Biblical
faith: I am not surprised if it turns out to be sorcery. Biblical faith is
dependence on God and his Christ exclusively. The day we began to depend on God
and Christ for our salvation we never ceased to depend on the Almighty for our
daily living and we must not terminate that dependence at any cost. When we
discover that we no longer can do anything on our own but are able to do
everything through Christ who strengthens us, we will at that point have
discovered faith. When prayer time comes believing will be as natural as
breathing if faith has become a part of us. We were born again by faith
therefore we must live and walk by faith.
When we have such type of faith, which is an everyday affair, we will
begin to see the link between faith, alms and prayer. Alms deeds will then take
place in our justification. We will begin to understand James when he says in
verse 24 of his 2nd chapter, ‘by works a man is justified, and not by faith
alone.’
When Paul points out in Ephesians 2 verses 8 to 10 that although works
did not save us but that we are saved by grace through faith, that we were
elected before the creation of the world to do good works for which we are
called, the message becomes clearer. So, when we walk by this faith we will
naturally perform good works of which alms are a part. I believe that is why
alms deeds aid our prayers. It is not because the deeds are magical but because
they are propelled by faith and in acting in response to our prayers the Lord
will be responding to our faith. We do alms because of the faith of Christ in
us and it is this faith, which cause our prayers to be answered. We thus live
daily by faith.
The foregoing brings me to yet another observation concerning alms
deeds. Alms deeds are good works and as Paul puts it, we were saved by grace
through faith and are called to do good works, which God foreordained us to do
before this world was founded. These good works are numerous and alms are just
some of them. Paul expands what he wrote in Ephesians 2:10 by writing the
following in Titus 2:11 t0 14, ‘For the grace of God that brings salvation has
appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts,
we should live soberly, righteously and godly, in this present world; looking for
the blessed hope, and glorious appearing of the great God and our saviour Jesus
Christ; who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and
purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous unto good works.’ Can you see
that the grace of God that brings salvation actually teaches us to be
passionate about good works? I therefore can now say that if we indeed have
been saved by the grace of God through faith, alms deeds and all other good
works have now become our eagerness. James 2:24 can now be seen to be in great
and sound harmony with the Pauline doctrine on justification by faith. Those
who live by faith just find themselves involved in alms deeds because when they
first believed the grace of God taught them wonderful things.
When I studied alms deeds I discovered that the doctrine overlapped
into faith, fasting, grace, salvation, love and mercy and I really could not
separate it from all these other doctrines. Alms deeds must be associated with
every believer. We must learn to give because our Father first gave. Alms deeds
are acts of love and mercy, which acts, must be associated with everyone who is
called by the name of the Lord.
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