What Giving Tells Us About the Nature of God

I get messages like the one above all-too-often from some very good people. It's a promise of favour and blessings. It's the assurance that if I send something to 10 or 30 or 100 of my mates then something good will happen to me and even to them. It feels like I'm in the Frontier Days and the man with the magic elixir is in his Conestoga wagon rolls into our village. We all go out to listen to him as he sells the magic in his salubrious vocal tones. 

There were a couple of times I remember seeing my own father fall to some pretty awful hucksters. One at the state fair in Topeka in the 1960s when he literally lost about $70 in game after game of 'a sure thing' to win. The other had to do with Ed McMahon and the Reader's Digest mailers, assuring the winner that inside THIS envelope were the winning numbers-- my dad tried so hard. 

The appeal, of course, is to our desire to win and even to win easily, if at all possible. And if the answer is as simple as forwarding a blessing machine, then what's the harm? After all, what could possibly go wrong with that?

The Book of Proverbs teaches us "ill-gotten gains do not profit." (10.2) What are gains that are profitable? They are the result of working with our hands and making honest and good decisions about our funds and about our manufacturing. The old joke was, "I love work; I could watch people do it all day." But to be honest, there's nothing as satisfying as going home after a full day of work having completed tasks and the gladness we have in our capacity to do so. This gives us a healthy respect for work and for compensation.

When a “sure thing” turns out to be nothing more than a fable and when a winner actually turns out to be a loser...the Bible is shown again and again to be the truth. 

The Proverbs also says, "Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it." (3.27) That means we should pay labourers in a reasonable time, either daily as would have been the custom in biblical days, or weekly, fortnightly, whatever the agreed time. And I think God does that with us in his way of doing things. We don't need to jump the gun and seek fast-money solutions. We don't need blessing machine rituals or one-arm bandits. 

It's the nature of God to be giving. We learn that in the most-quoted biblical text of all. John 3.16 says, "God loved the world so much that he gave..." It's in God's nature to give as a direct result of his love. Don't you find that true in your own life? If you love, you want to give... to your kids, to your spouse, to your neighbours? In John 3, the verse finishes with "that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life." 

What a treasure this is! God loved the Roman world so much that he gave Jesus. God loved the Assyrian world so much that he sent Jesus. God loves the Australian, the Singaporean, the Kiwi world, even those Americans... yes, everyone... unrestricted access to the love of God because Jesus is God's gift to us all. God loved the world so much that he gave. 

What is the result of your loving? We believe it's giving. 

Try it today. Give to another. Give to the saints by praying for them. Give to the Lord by spending time with him. Give to a ministry by donating your time, your talents, or your treasure to them. Give to yourself by taking time to be alone without distraction, a quiet half-hour where you will learn to thank God for all his benefits to you. If you love, you will give.

Bob Mendelsohn

October 2020