when you care enough to tell the truth

Giving people a helping hand is great. 

However, how helpful is it to provide temporal assistance to someone without sharing the Gospel of turning away from sin (repentance) and turning toward salvation found only in Jesus the Messiah?

So often, when we help someone it is just so that we can feel better about ourselves.

Most of us are helping others to alleviate our own sense of guilt.  That is not love.

Once the guilt is assuaged, we then pat ourselves on the back and smugly reflect on how "good" we are.

Assistance without the Gospel is is akin to giving someone icewater on thier way to hell.

Heaven forbid that we should share the truth with someone.  Telling someone the truth is more likely to alienate you and make you the target of ridicule.

The truth does not make us any friends.  If we tell someone the truth, well, it might offend them and they may not like us. 

So, for selfish reasons we hold back the truth and try to selfishly assuage our guilt by throwing money at the problem. 

Always maintain an eternal perspective.  Ask yourself, how much will this temporary circumstance really matter 10,000 years from now?

If you truly love and care about someone, then you should be VERY CONCERNED about where they will be spending ETERNITY before you concern yourself with where they will spend the night or get their next meal.

Providing food, clothing, and shelter to those in need is a great draw for getting people's attention.

But, the assistance should not be a goal in and of itself.

It should be an avenue to the goal of sharing the Gospel.  That should always be the drive and focus.