Spurgeon on Remembering the Poor part 1

"...The Lord. has a poor people in the midst of us for this reason, that he determines to give us opportunities of showing our love to him.Now, we show our love to Christ when we sing of him and when we pray to him; but if there were no poor people in the world we should often say within ourselves, “Oh I how I wish there were one of Christ’s brethren that I could help; I should like to give Christ something; I should like to show my Master that I loved him, not by words only but by deeds too.” And if all the poor saints were taken clean away, and we were all well–to–do, and had abundance, there would be none to require any assistance, and I think we might begin to weep, because there were no poor saints to help. It is one of the most healthy things in the world to help a saint; it is a great blessing to our own souls; it is a healthy exercise of the mind to visit the poor of the Lord’s flock, and distribute as we are able of our substance to their necessities.Let us look upon it, not as a mere duty, but as a delight and privilege; for if we were not able to give something of our substance to Christ, we should have to go down on our knees to ask him to give us some opportunity of showing our love to him. Take away the saints, and one channel wherein our love might flow is withdrawn at once. But that shall never be, for the poor we always shall have with us, and there are some reasons why we always shall have them."Spurgeon, C. H.: The New Park Street Pulpit, Volume 2. electronic ed. Escondito, California : Ephesians Four Group, 2000, S. 314