Give It Away...

 

Today I was reading 2 Cor 9, and noticed how it continues the thoughts from chapter 8 of giving generously.
And it has me pondering...again!

So many people seem to have shallow lives, with petty quarrels and problems that stem from selfish living. So many people seem stuck in their own little world, drowning in the sorrows of past wrongs done at the hand of parents, brothers, sisters, or pastors. So many people stay in these miry places for years and years, and perhaps for all their life, every day bitterly wishing their life would be better, or that people would stop picking on them, or that someone would just love them.

While it is true that we all have been created to need love, we also have been created to GIVE it.

It is true that God planned for families to get along harmoniously, living in the peace that comes from the shadow of the Cross, carrying the Gospel to their towns with other families who believe on His name, it is also true that this Plan is often smashed to pieces by selfish parents or children who grow up hating their heritage. If this is my story, then God has a plan to give me a new identity, a new life in Jesus that does not include me being stuck in my own shell of selfishness year after year. His plan is to make ALL things new, including giving me a servant's heart that loves to go about like the Master did while He was on Earth, doing good unto all men.

So how do I get unstuck? How do I get out of that daily rut of turning everything that happens or is said into a personal attack or a wound that hurts my heart? How do I live like Jesus did, seeming not to make much ado about the darts that came His way from those who hated Him, but rather serving wherever He went, even though the antagonism, gossip and slander and false accusations could have made Him feel vulnerable and hesitant to serve? How do I get the courage to love as though I will never get hurt? How do I find that place of praise in spite of painful experiences? How? Besides being in a daily walking-in-love-with-Jesus relationship, here is how to move forward past those hurtful places, here's how to get unstuck and how to keep climbing in spite of the sorrow:

GIVE AWAY

THE LOVE

YOU HAVE BEEN GIVEN!

 

God never intended for us to be satisfied to sit in our palaces,

fed to overflowing with the fullness of Christ,

without giving and giving and giving again.

 

Someone once told me, when I was facing a

 rather hurtful and hard-to-understand situation:

 

Where grace is found, grace is given.

 

And since that day, I have purposed to give as much grace as I have been given.

Which is a lot, considering that I am

the chiefest of sinners~apart from Jesus' new life in me.

 

God loves a cheerful giver, one who lives their life sowing seeds of kindness

and loving those whom He sends them, with a joyful abandon that comes

when we rely on the power and Life of Jesus Christ to fuel our motives

and to set our souls ablaze with the zeal of the Holy Spirit.

 

So go ahead.

Give it away.

Give every day.

Give til it hurts the flesh.

Give til you think there is nothing left to give away.

Give to the one who is the most hurtful.

Give to the one who is

the most stubborn and the most resentful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Give your all.
Because He gave His all for you.

While you were yet a sinner, Christ died for you.