Beloved: grace, mercy and peace be yours without measure from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. I am delighted to welcome you to the last week of the month of June 2024. My prayer is that God will see to it that every good thing that is meant to be yours in the month is yours before the month ends, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
As we go this week, I want to admonish you with some of the words of Paul to the Corinthian brethren about the Macedonian brethren, which say:
“And now, brothers, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the saints. And they did not do as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then to us in keeping with God’s will.” (2Cor 8:1-5NIV)
What does the apostle want the Corinthians to know about the Macedonian churches? He wants them to know about a special kind of grace God has given to them. And what kind of grace is that? It is the grace of giving. But could be that it was only the Macedonian churches that were giving to aid the Lord’s work at the time Paul wrote this letter? No! Why, then, was he drawing the attention of other believers to their giving? It was because their kind of giving was unusual and challenging.
As Paul points out, the Macedonian brethren were not devoted to giving to the apostles and other people of God because they were very rich or because they were richer than the other churches of God. On the contrary, at the time he wrote this letter, most of those brethren were dealing with extreme poverty. We would not know what occasioned their poverty at the time. Nevertheless, they gave joyfully and generously to aid Paul and his companions in supporting other people of God.
In fact, as Paul goes on to show us in the text above, these brethren gave beyond their financial conditions at the time. Not only that, they begged this apostle to permit them to give. That means, based on their financial conditions at the time, Paul would not have wanted them to give him or others anything at all. But they begged him not to deny them the opportunity of giving to God in this manner. You can, then, see why Paul was drawing the attention of other churches of God to what these people did. It was unusually inspiring and challenging.
But why did these brethren give in that manner? Why would anybody give generously and joyfully in their moment of lack? The only explanation for that is that the love of God has taken over that person. See, one of the things that will let us know that God has completely possessed someone with His love is that the person will want to give Him anything and everything. That person will not be looking at what he has or does not have in giving; rather, he will be looking at the needs that God wants him to meet.
Look at the widow of Zarephath, for example. As we see in the bible, before Elijah came to stay with her, God had already spoken to her about him and the need for her to take care of him for Him. But what did the woman have at the time? It was just a handful of flour and some oil. What she had was not even enough to prepare a single meal for her and her only son. Yet God told her to take care of His servant that He was sending to her. And did she obey God or not? She did! Why? First, she loved God enough to give Him anything He wanted from her. Second, she trusted God enough to take care of her and her son, even if they gave Him all that they had left with them. And did God fail or disappoint her? No! (Cf. 1Kings 17)
In like manner, the Macedonian brethren gave for God’s work the way they did because they loved and trusted Him. And why were they able to love and trust Him like that? It was because they allowed His grace to work in their lives, fill them with His love and destroy selfishness in them.
Now if we too will allow God’s grace, His divine provisions to work in our lives, to change us, to melt our fears and to destroy all forms of selfishness in us, we will have no problem again loving and trusting Him wholeheartedly. And as we love and trust Him wholeheartedly, like the Macedonian churches, we too will find ourselves giving to Him in ways that will challenge the hearts of others and also open all kinds of doors of miraculous supply to us. Will you, then, let His grace work in you and destroy your selfishness and all the excuses you have been making for not being generous?
Do have a splendid week.
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One reply on “Let His grace work in you | By: J.O. Lawal | Date: June 23, 2024 | Series: From Pastor’s Desk | Number: Vol. 13, No. 8”
God does not want us to be selfish in any ways,,he want us as a child of God to be generous in terms of giving. May the Grace of God continually work in us in Jesus name