So if any of you readers have ever fallen head over heals in love, you may remember that one of the attitudes that went with that emotional storm was the desire to give to the lucky “love-bug”. Nothing was too small or too big, your desire carried you on to want to share whatever was good and pleasing to yourself with them. In a very real way that is just a tiny reflection of what happens when we fall in love with Jesus. However the mind-boggling thing is that He is busy pouring His gifts out upon you and I and we are are actually responding to that. I love the Song of Solomon, because it puts into such beautiful, poetic language, this adorable love song, which is a reflection of God, the Bridegroom’s love for the church (and each individual in it) which is the bride.
While our relationship with Him is not built on emotion and emotionalism, it is also not a cold, austere relationship which is only based on words, without feelings. The thing is that the closer we come to walking with Jesus, the more our attitude and actions will reflect His and here it is. He was always warm, generous, compassionate, loving, pouring out His gifts on us through grace upon grace. I love the verse were John the Baptist introduces Jesus in John 1:16 (Amplified version). “For out of His fullness [the superabundance of His grace and truth] we have all received grace upon grace [spiritual blessing upon spiritual blessing, favour upon favour, and gift heaped upon gift]. And in Ephesians 1 where Paul describes “all the spiritual blessings we have received” the sentence describing these gifts is laced with the word “grace”.
And notice in vs 7b . “….the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us with all …..what? wisdom and understanding “. So here comes a beautiful curly link back to the generosity which is part of true wisdom. You want to be wise? demonstrate it by being generous. But we can’t loosen that from the depth of our relationship with Jesus, just as He is the fount of wisdom so also He is the fount of generosity.
I think some people are just naturally more inclined to be generous. Paul speaks of the gift of giving (Romans 12:8). I have known people like that. Nevertheless we are all called to demonstrate this aspect of wisdom and I speak to myself first. I need to ask myself “am I kind to the needy?” Prov 14:31, not because of guilt but because the love of Christ towards me moves me to be.
I am so grateful to have access to this ‘stimulating and thought- provoking’ blog. Thank you brother for sharing your life with us and ‘teaching’ us at the same time. Actually its a ‘wake up call’ to be generous because He is generous.