Today is Blog Action day. The theme this year is eliminating poverty.

You may or may not know that I am a dedicated follower of Jesus. I’m not trying to inject religion into my blog. I’m just giving you a backdrop for this post; it’s nearly impossible for me to write about giving to the poor and not see it through a spiritual eye.

It seems to me that loving and giving to the poor should be natural for followers of Jesus. He himself loved the poor and tells us to do the same. So fighting poverty, for me,  is not simply an altruistic thing. It’s not political. It’s not a catchy campaign.  It’s loving Jesus.

To paraphrase Jesus, he says, “what you have done to the least of my brothers and sisters you have done to me.” He then goes on to say, “what you have not done to the least of my brothers and sisters you have not done to me.”  I take those as some serious words. Especially the “what you have not done…” part. There’s a lot I’m not doing.

OK, now let’s bring this down to earth.

It’s Blog Action day. The goal is to reduce starvation and poverty. After careful budgeting I now have quite a bit more time and money. I think it is only fitting that I give some of my resources to the poor. We actually have a great homeless shelter in Harrisburg. I went through the “make sure I’m not a serial murderer” interview. Now I just need to actually get down and start mingling with homeless.

A major theme of this blog is personal finance. Whether you are doing it for spiritual reasons or not I would recommend that you seriously consider donating some of your money to an organization of your choice.

I suggest Blood Water Mission

Better yet, get down on the homeless’ level and donate your time. I think you will find that it is rewarding for everyone involved.