Read Proverbs 19:17  Someone said that God must like poor people because he made so many of them.  Well, that really isn't true, but there are a lot of poor people.  Some people are poor because they use all of their money to buy beer or cigarettes or drugs.  They never have any money left over to save or to buy things that they need.  Then there are people who are poor because they have had bad things happen to them.  They have lost their jobs.  Or they have lost their houses because they didn't have enough money to make the house payments. Then there are some poor people who are married to someone who uses up all of the family's money.  Some kids are poor because their parents have made bad choices.  It isn't their fault that they were born into a poor family.  Our verse last Thursday talked about the slothful person.  Do you remember what a slothful person is?  A poor person may ask you for some money.  They may say, "I'll pay you back next week."  But they may not.  They are poor.  Usually we look at the person and their situation to figure out whether they will pay us back or not.  But our verse says not to worry about that.  God will pay us back!  What that means is that the Lord will take care of us if we take care of His poor people. But we can't just give poor people all of our money.  All of our money would only help them for a few days and then all of us would be poor.  We need to help them to get a job, or to manage their money better, or to save more of their money for hard times that are sure to be ahead.  But being poor is actually their problem,; not ours.  We can help them some, but they need to help themselves.  Actually, they need to get to know the Lord and begin to attend church.  That would be much better for them than for us to keep on paying their bills and taking care of them.  There is an old saying, "You can give a poor man a fish and feed him for one day, or you can teach him how to fish so that he can feed himself for the rest of his life."  Do you know what that means?  Talk about it.