GENEROUS GIVING

God’s goodness expresses itself in His generosity. God is good, and God is a giver. In fact, He is the Supreme Giver. God spoke the universe into existence. God breathed into you the breath of life. God formed you in your mother’s womb. When you were lost, God gave you Jesus to show you the way home. And God prepares all eternity for you. God is a giver. You are made in His image. So the best-version-of-yourself will be a generous giver, too…

The most joyful people also happen to be the most generous. Generous giving is joy. To give is to become more like God.

God delights in your giving and even multiplies it to bless others. “God loves a cheerful giver. Moreover, God is able to make every grace abundant for you, so that in all things… you may have an abundance for every good work.”  (2 Corinthians 9:7b-8) 

-- Allen R. Hunt in “Nine Words: A Bible Study to Help You Become the Best-Version-of-Yourself”

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OVERFLOWING BLESSINGS

“My cup overflows with blessings.”  (Psalm 23:5 NLT)

Is an overflowing cup full? Absolutely. The wine reaches the rim and then tumbles over the edge. The goblet is not large enough to contain the quantity. According to David, our hearts are not big enough to contain the blessings that God wants to give. He pours and pours until they literally flow over the edge and down the table. You’ll like the paragraph penned a century ago by F. B. Meyer [in “The Shepherd Psalm”]:

“Whatever the blessing is in our cup, it is sure to run over. With Him the calf is always the fatted calf; the robe is always the best robe; the joy is unspeakable; the peace passes understanding… There is no grudging in God’s benevolence; He does not measure out His goodness as an apothecary counts his drops…, slowly and exactly, drop by drop. God’s way is always characterized by multitudinous and overflowing bounty.”

The last thing we need to worry about is not having enough. Our cup overflows with blessings. 

-- Max Lucado in “Traveling Light: The Promise of Psalm 23” 

#5311

PASS IT ON

The grace of our loving heavenly Father has filled our lives, giving us a solid hope.  Now we have the privilege of sharing that grace to those around us.  As grace-filled men and women relate to each other, they communicate in tangible ways the value placed on each other's lives. We share in the abundance we have been given. And we bear witness that our lives are significant to another person.

We live in a throwaway culture. Sadly many people move through numerous throwaway relationships.  The beauty of someone who prizes and protects relationships is obvious.  Our challenge is to be daily renewed and refreshed in our Lord's grace and His provision, and then pass it on to others.

-- Adapted from Dr. Norm Wakefield & Jody Brolsma in “Men Are from Israel, Women Are from Moab”

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BAGS OF MERCIES

“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Thy faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in Him.’ The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul that seeks Him.”  (Lamentations 3:22-25 NRSV)

Since God has mercies to give, and He intends to give them to us, those mercies are not broken pieces of someone else’s leftovers… God has bags that were never untied, never opened up, but set aside through a thousand generations for those who hope in His mercy. 

-- John Bunyan, quoted in “Light for My Path”

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GOD’S ALL-SUFFICIENT GRACE - Part 2

“[The LORD] said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness’.” (2 Corinthians 12:9a NIV)

Plunge a sponge into Lake Erie. Did it absorb every drop? Take a deep breath. Did it suck the oxygen out of the atmosphere? Pluck a pine needle from a tree in Yosemite. Did you deplete the forest foliage? Watch an ocean wave crash against the beach. Will there never be another one?

Of course there will. No sooner will one wave crash into the sand than another appears. Then another, then another. This is a picture of God’s sufficient grace. Grace is simply another word for God’s tumbling, rumbling reservoir of strength and protection. It comes at us not occasionally or miserly but constantly and aggressively, wave upon wave. We’ve barely regained our balance from one breaker, and then, bam, here comes another.

“For from His fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.” (John 1:16 ESB)

-- Max Lucado in “Grace: More Than We Deserve, Greater Than We Imagine”


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CASCADING GRACE

Cascading grace. Isn’t this how God works? He starts the process. He doesn’t just love; He lavishes us with love (1 John 3:1 NIV). He doesn’t dole out wisdom; He “gives generously to all without finding fault” (James 1:5 NIV). He is rich in “kindness, tolerance and patience” (Romans 2:4 NIV). His grace is “exceedingly abundant” (1 Timothy 1:14) and “indescribable” (2 Corinthians 9:14-15).

He overflowed the table of the prodigal with a banquet, the vats at the wedding with wine, the boat of Peter with fish, twice. He healed all who sought health, taught all who wanted instruction, and saved all who accepted the gift of salvation.

God “supplies seed to the sower and bread for food” (2 Corinthians 9:10 NIV)… When God gives, He dances for joy. He strikes up the band and leads the parade. He loves to give.

-- Max Lucado in “Grace: More Than We Deserve, Greater Than We Imagine”


#4771

BEYOND ALL THAT WE ASK

“Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”  (Ephesians 3:20-21 NKJV)

We are created in the image of an infinite God who longs to give us abundant life even more than we long to receive it; life beyond all that we can ask or think or dream.

-- Thomas R. Albin in “Alive Now”, May/June 2002, published by The Upper Room, Nashville, TN.   Used with permission.

#4706

ABUNDANT LIFE HERE AND NOW

Jesus said… “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”  (John 10:10 NRSV)

I believe that when Jesus Christ comes into our lives, He not only saves us for an eternity after death, He brings eternity into our lives here and now. To the degree that we allow our Lord to do so, He helps us to sleep better, eat better, talk better, love better, and laugh better. He brings a kind of continual excitement into life. The Christian life is wonderfully earthy; we don’t seek, in our beliefs, to escape from this life, but we do expect to get hold of something beyond this earth. Not simply when we die; heavens, no! We expect a quite out-of-this-world touch on our lives here. 

-- J. Ellsworth Kalas in “Life from the Upside: Seeing God at Work in the World”


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GIVING IN RESPONSE TO GOD

“Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”  (Ephesians 5:1-2 NIV)

Our God is a giving God. He is a God of abundance, and He loves to give. In Christ He sacrificed willingly on the cross and then invited us into fullness of life. As His children, we are called to imitate Him. Our generosity in giving is a demonstration of God’s character and a response to what He has done for us.

As we become more and more who God has called us to be – more like Him – through the process of sanctification, we reflect God more and more. We become more loving, more gracious, and, yes, more giving. Because God is generous, we are also called to be generous. Generosity not only points others to God, it is an appropriate response to what God has done for us. 

-- from an article entitled "Why is giving so emphasized in the Christian faith?" on the gotquestions.org website


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