"Come, you who are blessed by My Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave Me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave Me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited Me in, I needed clothes and you clothed Me, I was sick and you looked after Me, I was in prison and you came to visit Me. Then the righteous will answer Him, Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You something to drink? When did we see You a stranger and invite You in, or needing clothes and clothe You? When did we see You sick or in prison and go to visit You? The King will reply, I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me." Matthew 25:34-40 (NIV)
In His parable about separating the sheep and the goats, separating the believers from the non-believers, Jesus said to His disciples that as they treat the poor and the needy, they are doing it to Him. Then He went on to say that they would be judged based upon how they treated the less fortunate. The sheep, who are the believers, will help the less fortunate while the goats, the non-believers, will not.
We should be very careful how we treat people, especially those who are less fortunate than we are because The Lord takes personally our treatment of the poor and needy. When we give to the poor, we are lending to The Lord and He will repay us. (Proverbs 19:17) Doing nothing is not acceptable, our sins of omission will be judged along with the sins we commit. We are to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. (Matthew 22:39) People will know that we are believers by the way that we show love to one another. (John 13:35) We are His sheep, and we are His emisaries to the world.
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