God is desirous to show us how to save ourselves, how to bless ourselves temporally and spiritually, intellectually, morally, physically, politically and in every possible way that He is capable of bestowing His blessings upon fallen humanity.

 The object of our meeting is not altogether for religious purposes, but to consult upon all matters for the interest of the church and kingdom of God upon the earth. … We meet also to consult upon the best course for us to pursue with regard to temporal things as well as spiritual things; for as we possess bodies as well as spirits, and have to live by eating, drinking, and wearing, it becomes necessary that temporal matters should be considered and discussed in our conferences, and that we should deliberate upon all things that are calculated to benefit, bless, and exalt the Saints of God, whether they refer to our spiritual affairs or to our avocations and duties in life as husbands and wives, as parents and children, as masters and servants. … The idea of strictly religious feelings with us, and nothing else, is out of the question; yet we do everything in the fear of God. Our religion is more comprehensive than that of the world; it does not prompt its [members] with the desire to “sit and sing themselves away to everlasting bliss,” but it embraces all the interests of humanity in every conceivable phase, and every truth in the world comes within its scope.

The Lord is anxious to do us good, to enlighten our minds, to inform our judgment, to unfold unto us His will, and to strengthen us and prepare us for the great events that must transpire in these last days. He is desirous to show us how to save ourselves, how to bless ourselves temporally and spiritually, intellectually, morally, physically, politically and in every possible way that He is capable of bestowing His blessings upon fallen humanity.

Chapter 19: Temporal Blessings and the Law of Tithing

John Taylor

Teachings of Presidents

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/teachings-john-taylor/chapter-19?lang=eng&verse=#p

He did what he could for the beaten man and then put in place a specific plan for others to do more.

 Remember that when the Lord lets us encounter someone in distress, we honor the good Samaritan for what he did not do as much as for what he did. He did not pass by on the other side even though the beaten traveler on the road was a stranger and perhaps an enemy. He did what he could for the beaten man and then put in place a specific plan for others to do more. He did that because he understood that helping may require more than what one person can do.

Henry B. Eyring "The Caregiver", General Conference, October 2012

Will This Buy Me Any Bread

In 1897 a young David O. McKay stood at a door with a tract in his hand. As a missionary in Stirling, Scotland, he had done this many times before. But on that day a very haggard woman opened the door and stood before him. She was poorly dressed and had sunken cheeks and unkempt hair.

She took the tract Elder McKay offered to her and spoke six words that he subsequently would never forget: “Will this buy me any bread?”

This encounter left a lasting impression on the young missionary. He later wrote: “From that moment I had a deeper realization that the Church of Christ should be and is interested in the temporal salvation of man. I walked away from the door feeling that that [woman], with … bitterness in [her heart] toward man and God, [was] in no position to receive the message of the gospel. [She was] in need of temporal help, and there was no organization, so far as I could learn, in Stirling that could give it to [her].”¹

The Sanctifying Work of Welfare, H. David Burton, April 2011 General Conference

They Subsist on Some Kind of Emotional Welfare

There are too many in the Church who seem to be totally dependent, emotionally and spiritually, upon others. They subsist on some kind of emotional welfare. They are unwilling to sustain themselves. They become so dependent that they endlessly need to be shored up, lifted up, endlessly need encouragement, and they contribute little of their own.

I have been concerned that we may be on the verge of doing to ourselves emotionally (and therefore spiritually) what we have been working so hard for generations to avoid materially. If we lose our emotional and spiritual self-reliance, we can be weakened quite as much, perhaps even more, than when we become dependent materially. On the one hand, we counsel bishops to avoid abuses in the Church welfare program. On the other hand, we seem to dole out counsel and advice without the slightest thought that the member should solve the problem himself or turn to his family. Only when those resources are inadequate should we turn to the Church.
Self Reliance BOYD K. PACKER March 2, 1975 • Devotional

We Must Defend Accountability Against Persons and Programs That Would Make Us Dependent

We must defend accountability against persons and programs that would (sometimes with the best of intentions) make us dependent. And we must defend it against our own inclinations to avoid the work that is required to cultivate talents, abilities, and Christlike character.

Free Forever, to Act for Themselves, D. Todd Christofferson, October 2014 General Conference

When She Gets Control of Her Spending, She Will Be Able to Help Others

I was the first assistant in a priests quorum. The bishop called me one day at my home. He said that he wanted me to go with him to visit a widow in great need. He said he needed me.

As I waited for him to pick me up at my home, I was troubled. I knew the bishop had strong and wise counselors. One was a famous judge. The other ran a large company and would later become a General Authority. The bishop himself would someday serve as a General Authority. Why was the bishop saying to an inexperienced priest, “I need your help”?

Well, I know better now what he might have said to me: “The Lord needs to bless you.” At the home of the widow, I saw him, to my amazement, tell the woman that she could get no help from the Church until she filled out the budget form he had left with her earlier. On the way home, as he saw how shocked I was, he chuckled at my surprise and said, “Hal, when she gets control of her spending, she will be able to help others.”

October 2013 Bind Up Their Wounds - President Henry B. Eyring

We Should Not Give or Provide What they Can and Should Do For Themselves

Even with the universally accepted desire to help the poor and needy, the Lord concurs in our goal but warns, “But it must needs be done in mine own way” (D&C 104:16). Otherwise, in our efforts to help, we may actually hurt them. The Lord has taught us the need to promote self-reliance. Even if we are able to help, we should not give or provide what they can and should do for themselves. Everywhere it is tried, the world learns the evils of the dole. Truly God knows best.

 APRIL 2013 GENERAL CONFERENCE - THE LORD’S WAY - ELDER STANLEY G. ELLIS

No Matter How May Temples We Build....

No matter how many temples we build, no matter how large our membership grows, no matter how positively we are perceived in the eyes of the world—should we fail in this great core commandment to “succor the weak, lift up the hands which hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees,”⁸ or turn our hearts from those who suffer and mourn, we are under condemnation and cannot please the Lord⁹ and the jubilant hope of our hearts will ever be distant.


H. David Burton, "The Sanctifying Work Of Welfare",General Conference  April 2011

Too Hurried to Serve

Let me illustrate this with a story from the Church News:
“A group of religion instructors [were] taking a summer course on the life of the Savior and focusing particularly on the parables.
“When the final exam time came, … the students arrived at the classroom to find a note that the exam would be given in another building across campus. Moreover, the note said, it must be finished within the two-hour time period that was starting almost at that moment.
“The students hurried across campus. On the way they passed a little girl crying over a flat tire on her new bike. An old man hobbled painfully toward the library with a cane in one hand, spilling books from a stack he was trying to manage with the other. On a bench by the union building sat a shabbily dressed, bearded man [in obvious distress].
“Rushing into the other classroom, the students were met by the professor, who announced they had all flunked the final exam.
“The only true test of whether they understood the Savior’s life and teaching, he said, was how they treated people in need.
“Their weeks of study at the feet of a capable professor had taught them a great deal of what Christ had said and done.” 8 In their haste to finish the technicalities of the course, however, they failed to recognize the application represented by the three scenes that had been deliberately staged. They learned the letter but not the spirit. Their neglect of the little girl and the two men showed that the profound message of the course had not entered into their inward parts.

James E. Faust, “‘Search Me, O God, and Know My Heart’,” Ensign, May 1998, 17

Oh, The Church Will Take Care of That. I Pay My Fast Offering!

"We must take care of the poor. Said the Lord, 'The poor ye have with you always.' (See Mark 14:7; John 12:8.) There have always been poor and I guess there always will be poor until the Millennium. We must take care of them and we must have the facilities to do so. But we must be very careful not to overinstitutionalize that care. We must not shift the burden that we ought to carry in our own hearts of spreading kindness and love and help to others, to the institution, which at best, is impersonal.

"I do not want you to get any idea that I am saying we should not have the welfare program. We must have it. It is a part of the Lord's plan and the good it does is vast and incalculable. But I think there is a tendency among us to say, 'Oh, the Church will take care of that. I pay my fast offering. Let the Church take care of that.' We need as individuals, I think, to reach down and extend a helping hand without notice, without thanks, without expectation of anything in return, to give of that with which the Lord has so generously blessed us" (Gordon B. Hinckley, Teachings of Gordon B. Hinckley [1997], 459).