Give it Away

This weekend, Easter weekend is all wrapped up in the love and generosity of God. One of the most well known passages in the Bible says, “For God so loved the world that he gave…”(John 3:16)  He gave.  

This was an interesting week for me. I felt my heart stirred and I had to choose to lean in to emotion or to lean into Jesus. I felt the spirit of God prompt me to be generous. I thought what does that look like? There are three ares that Jesus was generous with us the day that He chose to willingly get on a cross and take on all of our sin and shame so that we could have a life that is abundant and everlasting.  

My favorite picture from calvary is that of the veil being torn in two at the exact moment Christ took His last breath. (“At that moment the curtain in the sanctuary of the Temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, rocks split apart,” Matthew 27:15) It shows us just how generous God was with us, in our darkest moment of humanity God opened the door to His presence and said “come on in”. He invites us, regardless of who we are or what we have done, the veil was torn so that we could have access to all of Him. I wish I could have been in the temple that day to experience the power of that moment.  

God was generous with love.

He does not withhold His love from us. He doesn’t love us more if we act better. He doesn’t withhold His love from us when we disobey, He loved us before we accepted Him. In our deepest sin, in are darkest moment, Jesus was there, beckoning to us to come to Him.  God gives His love to us generously. No matter how bad our life gets or how hard it gets, He already gave us His best gift. God loved us so much that He sent His one and only son to die on a cross for our sins. In that moment, when the veil was torn, He extended His invitation and it never expires. If God was that generous to extend His love to us, how much more generous should we be in extending love to one another? That doesn’t just look like loving the people who are the closest to us, or the nicest, it looks like being generous with ourselves and loving people. It is through our love that people will see Jesus.  

God was generous with mercy.

God didn’t not make me pay the price for my sin. I didn’t have to pay Him to receive the gift of salvation. Instead, Jesus took on the debt for my sin and He paid it with His life. God didn’t give us what we deserve, He gave us Jesus. When He looks at me He doesn’t see my sin, He sees His son. What a clear and precise picture of how we are to treat one another, not giving judgement and condemnation, instead offering mercy to those who seek it. 

Offering mercy instead of justice. 

This is not an easy task. So many times in life we want people to pay for what they have done.  We want retribution and revenge, God encourages us to give mercy (“blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy” Matt 5:7). What a backwards way to live! Imagine who would see Jesus in our generosity if we extended mercy to those who have wronged us!  

God was generous with forgiveness.

When I was 18 and I told God that I would serve and follow him and asked Him to forgive me of my sins, to forgive me for abusing Him and turning away from Him, He did. I know because my life began to change. He was generous. However, it didn’t stop there, again time after time, year after year, each mistake, each failure God extends forgiveness.  He gently reminds me that Jesus paid the price for every sin. He urges me to remember that He doesn’t remember my sin, When I confess my sin and turn from it, God offers me forgiveness once again. We too, are called to forgive. How many times? As many times as it takes. We can not receive foreignness if we are unwilling to extend it. This is hard. This is a process but learning to forgive pulls us closer to Jesus, it draws us deeper into freedom!  Withholding forgiveness from others is bondage!! It holds us captive to every hurt. 

Be generous with forgiveness, speak it with your mouth and your heart with follow!!

Why do we want to be generous? Our generosity shows Jesus to a lost and dying world. We must care about people’s souls. We must care about the state of our friends and family. When we can have a heart to win the lost we will be urged to be generous with mercy, we will feel it necessary to be generous with love, and most of all we will be asked to be generous with forgiveness.  

My encouragement today is this, Be generous with yourself, allow God to show you the areas in your life that you are withholding generosity. Don’t forget to remember how generous God was with you.