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Monday, August 18, 2008

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Being More Blessed

"The Lord Jesus himself said, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive'." (Acts 20:35).

I had the very happy privilege of performing a wedding for a friend yesterday and I used this text as their wedding text.  Marriage is after all more about giving than taking and more about offering rather than receiving.  I encouraged them to try and out-give each other and to always put the other person first in their thinking.

I have heard lots of people say that marriage should be 50-50 and I think that I know what they mean when they say that.  If more people truly operated that way, I think that we would have more marriages not only survive but be considered blessed.  I think, however, that marriage should actually be a 100-100 arrangement, with each partner giving themselves completely to the other.  That, this text would seem to suggest, would create a marriage that would be "more blessed."  "It is more blessed to give than to receive," Jesus said.

As an aside, some people have suggested that these words of Jesus may not be true because they cannot be found anywhere in the gospels.  I don't agree with them.  Does it sound like something Jesus would have said?  Are they words that fit his character?   It is simple to suggest that Paul must have either had Jesus speak them to him directly in revelation, or they were passed down to him by some others who were witnesses to what Jesus did and said.  We know that Jesus probably did and said many things that were not written down (See John 20:30-31).  They are part of scripture!

When we receive something from the Lord, we can say that we are blessed.  When God came to Abraham, he told our father in the faith that he would bless him.  And to be blessed by God is a wonderful thing.  Did you know that Jesus came and died on the cross so that we might share in that blessing?

"So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. . . . He (Christ) redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit" (Galatians 3:9, 14).

God blessed Abraham so that he might be a blessing to the nations.  In Christ, by faith, we are now heirs of the same blessing that Abraham received.  And the purpose of the blessing continues for us as well.  We are blessed that we might be a blessing.  It is that act of "being a blessing" that moves us from being blessed to a place where we can be more blessed!

What has God given you and me?  We might feel like Peter in the book of Acts, when he said, "Silver or gold I do not have," but notice that he does not stop there, he says, "but what I have I give you" (Acts 3:6).  And, in reality, all Peter had to give to the crippled beggar in the temple gate was what Jesus had given to him.  If on the other hand, God has given you material wealth, the command of scripture is "to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share" (1 Timothy 6:18).  And, it's not just about money!  It is about time, energy, talents, gifts, compassion, empathy, and more.  It is that the other person has a need and you have been blessed by God to provide for the other on His behalf.  That is this more blessed kind of giving that Jesus was talking about.  When people give of what they have, no matter what it is,

"In this way they will lay up treasures for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life" (1 Timothy 6:19).

The life that is truly life, the life that is more blessed, is a life of giving out of the richness that we have received.  I may not have this or that, but what I have I give to you.  And in giving, I find myself not only blessed, but more blessed!

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