Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 3:00 — 4.1MB)
I’ve been talking about generosity this week—the joy of being a truly generous person. I want to remind you that God gave first. You know the verse, John 3:16: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. That is the ultimate example of generosity. Jesus condescended to earth, leaving the glory of heaven, sacrificing all that was rightfully his, to provide eternal life for us.
So, when we choose to be generous, even sacrificially generous, we are following Jesus for sure, showing the same attitude he had, learning the truth that it is more blessed to give than to receive. And after all, everything we think we own is just on loan to us. God owns it all and we are simply stewards—caretakers. Psalm 24:1 says that the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it, which includes everything you have! So when you decide to give some money—to be generous—you’re really giving away someone else’s money, right? And that is truly fun.
As Christ-followers, when we come to the place where we truly believe that we are possessionless, we don’t own anything, everything we have is given to us both to meet our needs and then to share with others, we are moving into new growth in God’s grace and new joy as we obey God’s Word.
To make the point that we are on this earth for a very short time compared to eternity, Randy Alcorn gives the illustration of drawing a line across a piece of paper, then go back and make a dot with the tip of your pen just above the beginning of line. The dot represents your time here on earth—whether that’s a hundred years or less. And as you’re in those years, it seems like a long time. But compare the long line representing eternity to the dot you made. It’s like a nanosecond. Randy says, “Live for the line, not for the dot.”
So, I close with this reminder from the Apostle Paul from 2 Corinthians 9:7: Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. If that were all the Bible told us about being generous, it should be enough, don’t you think? God loves a cheerful giver, and a cheerful giver is cheerful because she or he has learned that there is great joy in being generous—there is great joy in taking God at his word and obeying him.
(Click here to download the devotional for the entire week.)