When we talk about spiritual growth, a key point to learn is the distinction between motive and action. God, it seems, wants us not only to do what is right, but also to do it for the right reason.

Looking to straighten out their motives, Christians might turn to Matthew 6:1-4, where Jesus teaches,

Take care not to perform your righteousness in the sight of humans, to be seen by them; if you do, you will receive no wage from your father who is in heaven. Instead, when you perform your righteousness, don’t blast a trumpet in front of you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they will be honored by humans. Truly I tell you, they already receive their wage in full.

But as for you, when you give alms, your left hand should not know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms are given in secret. And your father, who sees what is done in secret, will pay you back.

I’m not sure this passage tells us exactly what we want to hear, if we’re approaching it with normal ideas about Christian spirituality. Though we want Jesus to send us into our own hearts looking for good motives, Jesus appears more concerned with how alms are given than with why alms are given. In the case of the hypocrite, it appears that the two are the same: he wants to be seen giving alms, so he does it publicly.

But for the disciple, Jesus never really gets at why she should give. He doesn’t seem to insist here that the giver have pure motives, or that she even care about the people she’s helping. In fact, the use of the word “wages” sort of sets up the whole thing as a trade-off. It seems that Jesus uses our hope for reward as motivation to do good.

The question, as he presents it, is not whether we have pure motives, or whether we would give if no one were looking at all. All Jesus talks about is who will see us––God or humans.

If we don’t pay attention, we can be tempted to out-spiritualize Jesus. When it comes to caring for the poor, Christians naturally want to make sure we have right motives and to put our hearts into the help we give others. Some good-natured folks who wish to avoid works righteousness might even say something like, “It’s really not about what we do; what God really wants is our hearts.” And I think this reflects something important for Christians.

However, while God does want our hearts, for us to act as if our own spirituality should be our focus in things like helping the poor surely leads us away from what God really wants. As my friend Matt has written before on his blog (or maybe mine), when God tells us to feed the poor, God may hope to win our hearts over so that we give cheerfully (thus 2 Corinthians 8–9), but we should probably assume that what God really wants is something a lot simpler: for the poor to have food to eat, houses to live in, and jobs to work at.

I think it is instructive that the prophets call the people of Israel to stop offering sacrifices because they aren’t taking care of the poor, not the other way around.

I bring all this up because of a blog post I read this week by Larry James, who runs a major food pantry and community development center in Texas called Central Dallas Ministries.

He suggests that a lot of people, when they say they want to “really make a difference,” rather than “just throw money at a problem,” actually mean they want to make a difference in their own life. In other words, their spirituality is turned inwards, so that they don’t feel they’re doing anything good if they can’t really put their heart into it and get involved.

James, however, suggests that often, the best way to make a genuine difference in the life of someone who struggles with poverty is indeed to throw money — lots of it — at organizations that help people in need. Heart-warming experiences are great, but money puts a lot more food on people’s plates.

Last week I bought lunch for a panhandler in Boston. We had a nice conversation, and I think it was absolutely worth my time and money to share that meal with a nice fellow who frankly seemed more lonely than poor. But I shouldn’t kid myself that I was somehow fighting poverty by the $6 is spent on him. I’m sure it was a nice change for him, and of course I get to feel sort of virtuous about the whole thing. But in the end, that kind of experience is no substitute for giving a substantial portion of my income to people like Larry James who know how to work within poor communities to improve people’s lives.

Maybe at some point in my life I’ll make the time to really participate in an organization like that, but in the meantime it would be a tragedy if I used my failure to give time as an excuse not to give money either.

So if you have the time, please read Larry James’ post, because I think it will help you grow. In fact, subscribe to his daily blog on your rss feeder: larryjamesurbandaily.blogspot.com.

But once you’re done reading it, please give to his organization, and then keep giving regularly every month. I really doubt in this case that God is as concerned with what you learn from Larry James as God is with whether people have jobs, homes, and food.