Proverbs 31:9 Open thy mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy.

The Bible devotes a great deal of time to teaching us our responsibility toward the poor. There are those who read the scripture that says the poor will always be with us, and feel that means God wants us to have poor people and therefore they have no responsibility toward them. Such an attitude, however, requires us to ignore large portions of the Bible.

The scripture above tells us to judge the poor righteously. It’s not our place to decide if their poverty is their own fault. This is God’s job. Ours is to reach out and help in whatever way we’re able. Let’s look at the Bible to see what else it tells us about poverty.
The book of Proverbs seems especially fond of talking about poverty.

Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but shall not be heard. (Proverbs 21:13)

He that oppresseth the poor to increase his riches, and he that giveth to the rich, shall surely come to want. (Proverbs 22:16)

This would seem to be a warning to business owners and government on the responsibility of those in power. If a business owner is keeping his employees poor not because he can’t afford to pay more, but because he wants a mansion and a limo, it would seem that God will even things out in the end.

The Savior, in the New Testament, often spoke of the need to care for the poor. His teachings left no doubt that we are responsible for those in need, and that we should serve them out of love.

The Mormons have several programs that work to meet this charge. One is a program designed to help its own members. By caring for their own, they prevent community programs from having to care for those people, and therefore leave more resources for those who don’t have a church that can help. One program gains its funds from a monthly fast. Each member who is able to do so goes without food or drink for twenty-four hours. Members then donate the cost of the two missed meals or more to a special fund, called fast offerings. This money is used to provide food, help with utilities and other needs for those in the congregation who are struggling. Those who need temporary help have helped others in the past, creating a revolving fund of sorts. In addition, those who receive are asked to help out if they’re able—assisting at the storehouse where they receive food, or taking on other church assignments. Although the amount of service they give will not likely equal what they receive, it allows recipients to maintain their self-respect by earning what they’ve received.

Another program assists people of all faiths. This is the Humanitarian Services Program and it reaches out to people world-wide. You often read of them arriving during major crises, such as Katrina, with food, water, cleaning kits and personal hygiene supplies. They also work in a variety of areas, including developing clean water resources in developing nations, providing wheelchairs, and helping with vaccine efforts. They participate in smaller projects in the United States, often through the efforts of local congregations.

To learn more about humanitarian relief services, visit Humanitarian Services.

There are Mormons in top positions in many companies and in government. Mormons learn leadership from a young age through church service and training.

At the age of eight, Mormon boys join the Cub Scouts (part of the Boy Scouts of America) and Mormon girls join the Activity Day Program, (an LDS program.) In these programs, they learn how to set goals and achieve them, and they learn how to spend their free time in meaningful ways. They develop skills that will make them productive, successful adults.

When they turn twelve years old, they move into the Young Women’s and Young Men’s programs. Using their ability to set goals and meet them, they are now given much harder goals to set and achieve. The boys work through the Boy Scouts program where available, and the girls—and boy who live where Scouting isn’t the approved program—work in a Personal Progress program.

They also begin to take an active role in leading their own programs. The program is overseen by an adult president, her counselors, and three scout leaders or advisors, plus a secretary. However, each class, consisting of youth of two ages, also has a youth presidency. The youth president and his or her two counselors and secretary lead the program. They learn the rules, receive training in leadership skills, set goals, and select activities that meet those goals. The adults provide shadow leadership. This means they are always present, and guide gently by asking questions that lead the youth to understand how to achieve their goals and by helping them learn to evaluate activities for effectiveness. However, it is the youth who are in charge, with leaders only assisting where needed.

The youth are taught Planning With a Purpose. This means they begin by asking what they want to have happen in the lives of those they lead. For instance, they may be concerned about the dress standards of the youth, or worried that some youth don’t have many friends. Then they develop an activity that will address that need, rather than coming up with a fun plan and squashing it into the program. Afterwards, they evaluate how effective the activity was in achieving the goal, determine what follow-up is needed, and decide how to improve based on what they learned.

With six years of leadership training, the youth are well-prepared to move into the adult LDS world, with its many leadership opportunities. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—the real name of the church—is a lay church, and it has a very extensive program. Everyone is able to work who wants to do so, as an unpaid volunteer. Assignments are made and positions are frequently changed, so its members have opportunities to do many different things, each job bringing with it its own set of skills.

Both men and women have opportunities to lead. There are a number of auxiliary organizations, all of which have three member presidencies. Some church positions are filled only by men, others only by women, and some are open to either. There are no promotions—the adult president of the children’s Primary Organization might be the assistant in the baby nursery the next week. However, most people do learn leadership by serving as a counselor to someone with more experience. On the other hand, sometimes a completely inexperienced person is placed in the position of president and chooses an experienced counselor to provide the shadow leadership mentioned above to help her rise to the responsibility.

Unlike the world, the church presumes that if God calls you to a position, He will also qualify you to do it. Members learn leadership, making mistakes, but always progressing until they become skilled leaders. This is one of the ways the church fulfills its responsibility to help God’s children become everything He planned for them to become.

There is one word used by Julie B. Beck, General Relief Society President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (nicknamed Mormons), in reference to how women of this Church might fulfill their purpose in this worldwide organization: revelation.

"We can do the work of the Lord in His way when we seek, and act on personal revelation. Without personal revelation, we cannot succeed. If we heed personal revelation, we cannot fail."

In Joel 2:28-29, we are given a prophecy concerning revelation and the women of the latter day:

And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.

Personal revelation is attributed to righteous men and women, and must be used with wisdom according to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit.

But what is revelation? How can we know we're receiving it if we don't fully understand what it is?

"Revelation is communication from God to His children. This guidance comes through various channels according to the needs and circumstances of individuals, families, and the [Latter-day Saint] Church as a whole...According to our faithfulness, we can receive revelation to help us with our specific personal needs, responsibilities, and questions and to help us strengthen our testimony" (Gospel Topics, Revelation).

Personal revelation does not come easily. Neal A. Maxwell, late latter day apostle, tells us that revelation "requires serious mental effort on our part....Revelation is not a matter of pushing buttons, but of pushing ourselves, often aided by fasting, scripture study, and personal pondering. Most of all, revelaion requires us to have a sufficient degree of personal righteousness, so that on occasion revelation may come to the righteous, unsolicited" (Neal A. Maxwell, “Revelation,” First Worldwide Leadership Training Meeting, Jan. 11, 2003, 5).

How does revelation assist the women of the Mormon Church in making the most of this Relief Society organization? I hope in sharing a rather personal experience I might be able to help you understand.

Several weeks ago I began to feel listless. Certain things hadn't come together as I'd hoped, and I suddenly found myself with a lot of time on my hands. I'm the sort of person who will knit scarves while watching television, so suddenly finding myself with so much free time felt beyond daunting.

I began to pray and to fast about finding a purpose and good use for all this extra time. I received two answers, both of which I know were revelation.

First, to take care of my children. This seems like an easy thing to do, and I was giving my little ones a lot of my time already. So why the extra emphasis?

Over the past weeks I've come to realize these children, and all the precious spirits who have come to earth at this time, need more attention, more teaching, more preparing to deal with the wickedness now present. I was doing a good job, but I needed to do better.

The second revelation came to me as I felt strongly inspired to take some leftover dinner to a sister in our ward (local congregation). This particular woman was in dire circumstances, and my husband as bishop could not do as much as he'd wanted to help.

I went to the sister's house, gave her the food, and we talked. She was feeling very low at the time, and, as many of us have felt at one time or another, frustrated that even when she was trying to get her life back together things still kept going wrong.

In that moment words came to my mind, words I was supposed to tell her, words she needed to know. This had never happened to me before. Among those words were these, "The Lord sent me to you tonight. He loves you so much He sent me to you."

As I drove away a truth settled over me, one I believe illustrates what one individual can do in fulfilling the grand and beautiful purpose of Relief Society: we are called upon to minister to sisters in need. We are given revelations on how we might best serve, or comfort, or teach those who are lacking.

Just yesterday this was done for me by Sister Averett in my ward. I'd had a really rough day, and couldn't understand why. She felt strongly inspired to come to me. We talked, and an answer was given. How grateful I am for loving sisters like herself who are daily working for righteous purposes, so that she was ready to give help when I needed it.

For anyone who reads this I leave you my testimony. I know Heavenly Father put this remarkable organization of women in place because He knows the power of a righteous woman. I also know that if we desire to obtain personal revelations, we must be ever striving to deserve such blessings. We need to keep our lives in sync with the Lord's ways, and our hearts open. Only then can truth be bestowed upon us.