Generous

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Generous: Beyond Money And Tithing   

Time after time Jesus has impressed on me His desire that I become more generous; He shows me that generosity is a big part of who He is, and therefore, of what we are, seeing as every human is created in the image and likeness of God, and we Christians have Jesus inside of us; we are also in Jesus as He sits at the right hand of our Father God, ruling and reigning in Heaven (John 14:20). 

Jesus is steadily and uniquely growing each one of us "until we all attain unity in the faith and a full understanding and knowledge of the Son of God, that we might reach a thorough maturity to the height of Jesus' own perfection; the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ and the completeness found in Him" (Ephesians 4:13 Amplified).

There is much teaching in the Church about the attributes of God, those aspects of who He is which help define Him and contribute to how the Universe is, and how we humans really are. (To me, thinking about God's attributes also reinforces the inadequacy of all the other gods).

The attributes I most remember being taught are that:

God is eternal, (God dwells in eternity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit always were, time is part of the so-very-beautiful Creation, God is Lord of time, and for ever will be);

God is holy (He is set apart from all Creation, He cannot say something which is not true or do anything sinful or against love, that is, against Himself).

God is omnipresent (He is always everywhere);

God is omnipotent (there is no limit to His power and ability to do things, in the natural and even beyond, in the supernatural);

God is immutable (He does not change, He is always the "same yesterday, today and forever" (Hebrews 13:8));

Amazingly, all these attributes (and the many others which I've not listed) flow to us, "aim at and pursue righteousness, Christ likeness, faith, love, perseverance, patience, and gentleness of heart" (1 Timothy 6:11). 

Paul would never have asked his spiritual son and beloved friend Timothy to seek these qualities if they would not be possible to acquire. They are, in Jesus!

As I've been pondering this idea of "generosity" I've come to see that it's a constant theme throughout Scripture, that is, through the whole history of humankind. Indeed, I now believe that generosity is another of God's attributes. I've also found that "kindness" is a huge theme from Genesis, when God created the Universe (Genesis 1:31, Hebrews 1:2), to Revelation, where He assures us of our eternal glorious future with Him (Revelation 22:17). In the Old Covenant these lifestyle qualities came before and went beyond the keeping of the law, which defined so much, including tithing, but were encouraged as a way to live because one was grateful to God and loved Him.

Now, in the New Covenant, we follow Jesus whose whole earthly life was filled with compassion and kindness and giving in extreme generosity: salvation to all who believed, healing to all who asked or came to Him, deliverance from demons, sometimes from a lifetime of terrible spiritual oppression. My family has seen and experienced all of these lovely gifts from our Saviour.

I am still learning to live like this, Trish is too. In times past we've had very little money but we did have six children. We were not able to respond with big gifts to requests for money. But we found it a joy to open our house and offer hospitality, to give meals or food, to give our time and lend our skills to help people out, to be compassionate and to pray and to minister. We do not let our economic circumstances get in the way of our ability, or our desire, to be kind. 

We've learned to give of ourselves, in and through Jesus "for out of His fullness and abundance we have all received grace upon grace and spiritual blessing upon spiritual blessing and even favour upon favour and gift heaped upon gift" (John 1:16).

When I was a very new Christian I became excited when I was reading Luke chapter 12 "Jesus said to His disciples: 'Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear .. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds .. '" (Luke 12:22-32). How kind and generous God is .. Jesus assures us that He will meet all our needs.

There have been times when I felt that Jesus was not keeping up! But now that I'm getting old I can see that He was never mean to me or my family; I was often thinking of things as needs which were not. We were blessed, we had each other, how few families today have the joy of six children! We never missed a meal, happily we learned to be very good and creative cooks and were able to thrive on what we had. Whenever we urgently needed something, the means became available for us to do the repair or replace the broken thing. Sure, our living standard was below many others economically, (our whole society is a mix of incomes and levels of wealth), but as a family we knew joy, and we grew! 

Our desire is to participate with Jesus in His work on the Earth; Jesus goes before and we follow. Our kids all love us and we know that we are kept in Father God's hand and that Jesus is always right here with us .. Our lovely generous and kind God!

Praise Jesus ..

Favourite Bible Verses

"Yes, I've settled on Abraham as the one to train his children and future family to observe God's way of life, live kindly and generously and fairly, so that God can complete in Abraham what he promised him" (Genesis 18:19 Message).

"Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share" (1 Timothy 6:18).

"He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" (Micah 6:8).

".. the more important matters of the law - justice, mercy and faithfulness .." (Matthew 23:23 Jesus' words).

"But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. But you man [or woman] of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses. In the sight of God, who gives life to everything, and of Christ Jesus, who while testifying before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you to keep this command without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Timothy 6:6-14).

"Out of his fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace" (John 1:16).

NOTE: Words

I find it interesting that the words "generous", "generosity" and "generously" appear more often in the contemporary Bible translations like the NIV (24 times) and, even more so, the Message (which is more recent) (125 times). Perhaps this is because we use words differently than in previous generations; or perhaps it is because we see the New Covenant in a less legalistic and more inclusive light than did our parents and grandparents.

Whatever the reason, it is a delight to now know our Heavenly Father as a kind and generous God. So much better that other people's gods who seem so critical and angry, demanding and exclusive and misogynistic ..

NOTE: Repayment

It's not hard to find Bible verses which assure us that God will repay us for everything we give. Indeed many of us have heard these verses quoted time and again during "giving" sermons at church or on TV. To emphasize these verses seems to me to reflect the World more than the Kingdom of God.

My God gives to me all the time, even when I am foolish or selfish or mean and sinful. We know that our Lord Jesus hates sin and lived a sinless life. I emulate Him as best I can (and am happy to say I'm still growing in this), but still I sin. God never even slows down His grace and blessing towards me because of this! I believe that we never need look for repayment when we show kindness and generosity; God will always be who He is and show His love for us, even when we cannot see it ..

NOTE: Sin

When we talk about sin, many people say that they're not really bad because they "don't rob banks or murder people". I agree that these are pretty bad sins, but to me, the really bad ones are those hurtful things we can do to people close to us; meanness and betrayal would be among the worst that I've experienced; I feel so totally gutted when a person betrays me, or is mean or bullying towards me .. these are the opposite of love and kindness and generosity ..

Hallelujah !!

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Amen. Praise Jesus.