Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. Matthew 5:42
“Let us look at it in its naked simplicity—this great principle of life. “Give!” That is a Christian word. That is not a word of this world. The world never spoke that. Jesus uttered it. The world inscribes upon its banners, “Get.” That is the ambition of all great cities. The struggle in a city is tremendous, and all things conspire to develop in us the acquisitive powers of our nature.
Does a man want bread, he must struggle for it; does he want money, he must wrestle for it; fame, he must work for it. What is a city but a few hundred thousand human beings huddled together in a few square acres of land, every one of them striving to get!
Give! That is the attitude for every soul to take. That is the disposition for every soul to cultivate…Let every man say, “I will make it a principle of my life to give, and nothing shall set limits to my giving but the golden law of love.”
Charles Edward Jefferson (1860-1935) New York City Minister, excerpt from the sermon: “The Principle of Giving” based on the text: Matthew 5:42. Reproduced in Doctrine and Deeds (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Company, 1901) 186, 190.