Charity Without Compassion

Charity, the act of showing love. We often associate charity with the giving of alms, or donations to the local food bank or homeless shelter. The practice is uniquely middle eastern, and brought to the western world with the advance of Christianity.

However, with the spreading plague of socialism, the act of charity has been taken out of our hands, or more literally stolen from our pocketbooks and put into the hands of government.

With the widespread abuse and misuse of our welfare and social security systems, it's hard to even think about giving more to charity organizations. The liberal socialists would like you to believe that as a society, we owe a living to everyone despite their ability or willingness to contribute to that society.

Margret Thatcher, a brilliant conservative, in her third term as prime minister of the United Kingdom, said,

"There is no such thing as society. There is living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate."

And that is what socialism has robbed from us, the freedom to to help those in our community, the ones who we could help with direct aid, jobs, and direction. When the charity of individuals is transferred to an impersonal entity like the government, then personal accountability of those receiving the charity disappears. That is why we see so many people have given up on the job market, because with little to no effort, they are able to receive benefits greater than working a whole week for minimum wage.

There are two types of people in the world. The Makers and the Takers.

No matter where you are on the economic spectrum, you have a choice to make. Will I be a maker or a productive individual, or will I be a taker who lacks contribution but expects to be rewarded. Every level of the economic spectrum has these dynamics. For example, on the high end of the economic spectrum you have business owners, investors, CEO's and the like who are driven to produce new products, new ways of thinking, or take advantage of opportunities to make money, but you also have the trust fund babies, who live a life of leisure off of their predecessors financial gains, milking their families foundations outside of the tax laws. On the other side of the spectrum, you have farmers, factory workers, store clerks who put in long hours to produce or manage in the capacity that they are at, and then you have the welfare queens, the street people and the homeless who live off the government programs and what little charity is left in this world to just make it.

I have never advocated withholding aid from the mentally handicapped, or the disabled. The problem is that we are ever expanding the definition of who is mentally handicapped and who is disabled. In order to expand socialism, you have to have victims. In order to expand capitalism, you have to have people who believe in themselves.

That's where The Discipleship Center makes the difference.

We want to take people away from the negative people in their lives who tell them to stay at the bottom rung and accept the crumbs from others. We want to take people away from their self medication of drugs and alcohol to cope with the dissatisfaction of life. We want to take people away from their government handouts and show them that they can make it. We want to show people that work will not kill you. We want to show people that good things come to those who wake up early, work hard, and feed themselves from their own efforts. We want to show people that God always intended us to work, even before our fall into sin. We want to show people that when they are successful, that they can help others who really do need help.

While it's hard to show compassion to those for whom our charity is stolen for and given to with no regard for real need or for accountability, but it is easy to teach someone gratitude and from that foster a new sense of charity with compassion.