For God so loved the world that he __ his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. [John 3:16]
Of course, you know the missing word from perhaps the most cited verse in the entire Bible:
GAVE.
The Gospel message is that God sacrificed in order for us to be saved.
God is generous. Jesus is generous. The Holy Spirit is generous. God’s grace, mercy, justice, and love are generous. The message for us is clear: our lives as disciples should be generous.
God gave the world Jesus because God loved the world. Love is an emotion. Expressed love is an action. Giving is love in action. Generosity is Active Love.
This post is the first in a series exploring generosity as a means to better understand God and to better build our relationship with God through Christ and the Holy Spirit.
God’s Generosity Is All Around Us
The nature of God is generosity. The actions of God reflect generosity. Everywhere we turn, we see evidence of God’s generosity.
Gifts from God include:
CREATION
The gift of the world and life
PROVISION
The gift of sustenance and sufficiency
LAW
The gift of order and instruction
FREE WILL
The gift of freedom and choice
EMPATHY
The gift of connecting emotionally and spiritually with others
GRACE
The gift of forgiveness and restoration
SALVATION
The gift of eternal communion with God through Christ
God not only shares these gifts with us, God enables, empowers, and instructs us to share them with others. We are made in God’s image [Genesis 1:27] and given amazing influence over the world God made [Psalm 8]. All of life is a marvelous opportunity to experience generosity.
The Gospel Is Generous
Generosity is at the heart of the Good News brought to the world by Jesus Christ. This truth is expressed by the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 8:9:
For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.
Jesus’ life was service and sacrifice. He used his divinity to demonstrate the nature of God. He used his humanity to show how much God loves us and wants to be in relationships with us.
Christ’s death on the cross was the ultimate act of generosity. He enabled the miraculous substitution by which he received the cost of all human sin and shared in return the gift of eternal life to all who accept it and who become fellow sons and daughters of God. Our response must be to reciprocate by loving God and loving others as Jesus’ instructed in Matthew 22:37-40:
“’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
Jesus himself expressed the essence of generosity in Luke 6:37-38:
Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.
An abundant, joyful, and faithful life is based on and reflects grateful, active, loving generosity.
Superhighway to the Soul
Having spent years exploring the purposeful and practical nature of giving, I believe that generosity is the aspect of God closest to the surface in humanity. When we receive God’s gift of love and share it with others wisely and well, then we find a superhighway to the soul. This moves us closer to understanding God and blesses us more fully in service to God and to others.
Generosity is the essence of our faith. It is the key to making real the blessings of God for ourselves and for others. A life of discipleship in Jesus Christ is thankful giving expressed as Active Love.