Helping others is a good thing.
Helping the poor does seem to be a corner stone for the early christian church.
I think Jesus asks his followers to give to the poor because it is an outward sign of the nature of his teachings.
By giving to the poor and helping others the religion gained popular following from the poor. Since the majority of people are not rich, (90% of wealth always seems to end up owned by 10% of the people) the followers grow in number as every poor person helped feels a kinship with those that helped him. Working together with others gains a community and a sence of belonging, and all those people do better and are able to help more people. I think it is natural for some to want to help others and Jesus teachings got those people to join together.
One altruistic person on his own is fool as selfish people will exploit him.
But a group of altruistic people working together do better and they can identify each other because they are part of the same group, this defends them from the selfish individuals.
Of course once the group gets very large, it is open to inflitration by selfish individuals who use the group as cover for their selfish behaviour.
Being generous to the poor, is a good thing. If your faith gives you extra reason to do this, then that is a good thing. But you dont need to be a christian to be generous, just as you can say you are one and still remain selfish.
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