In our home we receive more gifts on our birthday than on Christmas. On Christmas we give to our children only enough to celebrate the great gift that God gave the world when He sent His only begotten to walk with man. To truly symbolize that gift and show our gratitude by trying to follow Christ's example we give to those in need instead.
Choose a charity any charity, for Charity is the pure love of Christ, to take an ornament from a giving tree or donate to a cause, put a dollar in the red salvation army tin every time you go to the store. Do something, it feels so good.
This year I found a new way to give, I think my favorite so far. FEED is a program to feed the children of the world. World hunger is a solvable problem. And I personally can not look upon a child in need without wanting to wrap them in my arms and do all that I can to make their pain go away.
Prophets of God have laid out our responsibilities to others. And the Lord Himself has said "if ye love me, feed my sheep".
14 And ye will not suffer your achildren that they go hungry, or naked; neither will ye bsuffer that they transgress the laws of God, and fight and cquarrel one with another, and serve the devil, who is the master of sin, or who is the devil spirit which hath been spoken of by our fathers, he being an enemy to all righteousness.
15 But ye will ateach them to bwalk in the ways of truth andcsoberness; ye will teach them to dlove one another, and to serve one another.
16 And also, ye yourselves will asuccor those that stand in need of your succor; ye will administer of your substance unto him that standeth in need; and ye will not suffer that the bbeggar putteth up his petition to you in vain, and turn him out to perish.
17 Perhaps thou shalt asay: The man has brought upon himself his misery; therefore I will stay my hand, and will not give unto him of my food, nor impart unto him of my substance that he may not suffer, for his punishments are just—
18 But I say unto you, O man, whosoever doeth this the same hath great cause to repent; and except he repenteth of that which he hath done he perisheth forever, and hath no interest in the kingdom of God.
19 For behold, are we not all abeggars? Do we not all depend upon the same Being, even God, for all the substance which we have, for both food and raiment, and for gold, and for silver, and for all the riches which we have of every kind?
20 And behold, even at this time, ye have been calling on his name, and begging for a aremission of your sins. And has he suffered that ye have begged in vain? Nay; he has poured out hisbSpirit upon you, and has caused that your hearts should be filled with cjoy, and has caused that your mouths should be stopped that ye could not find utterance, so exceedingly great was your joy.
21 And now, if God, who has created you, on whom you are dependent for your lives and for all that ye have and are, doth grant unto you whatsoever ye ask that is right, in faith, believing that ye shall receive, O then, how ye ought to aimpart of the substance that ye have one to another.
22 And if ye ajudge the man who putteth up his petition to you for your substance that he perish not, and condemn him, how much more just will be your bcondemnation for withholding your substance, which doth not belong to you but to God, to whom also your life cbelongeth; and yet ye put up no petition, nor repent of the thing which thou hast done.
23 I say unto you, wo be unto that man, for his substance shall perish with him; and now, I say these things unto those who arearich as pertaining to the things of this world.
24 And again, I say unto the poor, ye who have not and yet have sufficient, that ye remain from day to day; I mean all you who deny the beggar, because ye have not; I would that ye say in your hearts that: I agive not because I bhave not, but if I had I wouldcgive.
25 And now, if ye say this in your hearts ye remain guiltless, otherwise ye are acondemned; and your condemnation is just for ye covet that which ye have not received.
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