Giving

by

Give Without Expecting A Return

10th October

“Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full – pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back.”

Luke 6:38

True generosity gives without expecting a return. In fact, in the previous verses, Jesus says the following, ‘ Love your enemies. Do good to them. Lend to them without expecting to be repaid‘. The Kingdom principle is to give to others without expecting to receive back. However, there is good news. Jesus promised that when we do give, our Heavenly Father who sees all, will bless us and in return, what we give, will be given back to us, even more than we gave in the first place. Yet, what we receive in return should never be the motivation of our giving. There is no formula. We give, because all we have is God’s anyway. We give from God’s storehouse, not our own. We give back to Him, what He has already given to us. It is by the grace of God that He blesses us when we give.

Moreover, when we give, especially to those who we feel might not deserve our gifts, we replicate the actions of the our Heavenly Father, ‘…you will truly be acting as children of the Most High, for He is kind to those who are unthankful and wicked’ (v35). Our Heavenly Father is compassionate, and likewise, we are commanded to be the same. Let us not withhold the blessings we have freely and generously received. May we freely give our time, our love, our money and our compassion.

We love because we have first been love by God. We give because we first have received from God.

by

Give Without Expecting A Return

13th January

“Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full – pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back.”

Luke 6:38

True generosity gives without expecting a return. In fact, in the previous verses, Jesus says the following, ‘Love your enemies. Do good to them. Lend to them without expecting to be repaid‘. The Kingdom principle is to give to others without expecting to receive back. However, there is good news. Jesus promised that when we do give, our Heavenly Father who sees all, will bless us and in return, what we give, will be given back to us, even more than we gave in the first place. Yet, what we receive in return should never be the motivation of our giving. There is no formula. We give, because all we have is God’s anyway. We give from God’s storehouse, not our own. We give back to Him, what He has already given to us. It is by the grace of God that He blesses us when we give.

Moreover, when we give, especially to those who we feel might not deserve our gifts, we replicate the actions of the our Heavenly Father, ‘…you will truly be acting as children of the Most High, for He is kind to those who are unthankful and wicked’ (v35). Our Heavenly Father is compassionate, and likewise, we are commanded to be the same. Let us not withhold the blessings we have freely and generously received. May we freely give our time, our love, our money and our compassion.

We love because we have first been love by God. We give because we first have received from God.

by

It’s Better To Give

11th January

“Honour the Lord with your wealth and with the best part of everything you produce. Then He will fill your barns with grain, and your vats will overflow with good wine.”

Proverbs 3:9-10

The principle of giving should be an evident fruit in any believers life. Not just financial giving, but giving of time, acts of kindness and love, and service towards others. Yet the principle of giving is not made up but the writer of proverbs or some other human writer, it is a principle that comes from God Himself.

Father God knew that His relationship with mankind had been severed by man’s sin in the garden of Eden. He knew the only way to restore that relationship was to send Jesus Christ, His One and only Son as a sacrifice for our sins, to pay the debt we owed and restore mankind’s relationship with God. In other words, God sent His best, His Son Jesus to this earth, for our sakes.

Yet God’s gifts started way back from the beginning of time. He gave humanity trees and crops to bear fruit and vegetables, He gave Adam Eve as a partner, He gave women the ability to reproduce, and even though man sinned when they ate the forbidden fruit, He continued to pour His love, grace and mercy on mankind throughout history.

We have been set the greatest example of giving by the creator of every good perfect gift. Let us remember that all we have is a gift from God; whether financial wealth, friends, family, property, food on your table and clothes on your back. All we have and are is a gift from God. It should be our pleasure to replicate our Father’s action, in our generosity both to God (firstly) and to others.