That puts me in the top 5.2% of the world’s population according to the Global Rich List website.
Consider your answer to the following question: how many taps do you have in your house providing clean water -hot and cold? Remember to include the washing machine if you have one and any outside taps for the garden.
If your answer is one or more, then you are among the richest seventh of the world’s population in economic terms.
1.3 Billion people live on less than one US dollar a day. 2.6 billion people lack basic sanitation, while 1.2 billion do not have adequate housing.
Over 20 ooo children die every day of diseases we could prevent.
US Christians spend $8 billion dollars on dieting – that is on curing over-consumption – and only $2 billion on mission.
Yet most of us have become morally numb to these facts. Something is not right. How you handle your money is important for your spiritual well-being. ”No one can serve two masters,” said Jesus. ”Either he will hate the one and love the other or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money, ” (Matthew 6:24)
Every time we spend money, we are making an ethical decision. We are deciding not to spend it on helping the poor or furthering the gospel.
There is a sense in which instead of a thousand dilemmas about how we should use our money, we have to make one fundamental choice: do we live for God or for money? It is because we waver about this decision that we replicate it day by day.
(taken from Porterbrook Training: Gospel Living module; Unit 9: Living Now: Possessions)
Ed Stetzer has a good post on Ways to Engage Global Poverty
