Tag Archives: let your light shine

Generosity – The Measure Of Eternal Life

Christian Life, , , ,

GENEROSITY – THE MEASURE OF ETERNAL LIFE

It’s not only important that we give. It’s also about why we give.

God condemns giving to be honoured for our sake but giving to honour God brings glory to Him and gives others encouragement to follow suit.

Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, men will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else. And in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace God has given you. (2 Cor. 9: 13-14)

Our generosity should be based squarely on who God is. We give because He has freely given to us.

Freely you have received; freely give. (Matt. 10: 8b)

When we give out of the motivation of mercy, God promises to meet all our needs and the light of our good works will reflect back on Him.

In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise you Father in heaven. (Matt. 5: 14)

Jesus took the issue of generosity to an even deeper level than giving simply because we are obliged to take care of those who cannot take care of themselves. Everything we do for others is a reflection of how much we value God’s mercy towards us. Generosity is not about giving to others because we are being benevolent towards them. Generosity is our duty because God is generous towards us. Withholding our money and possessions when we can meet the needs of others, from God’s perspective is the same as stealing.

Jesus told a parable to illustrate what our duty is all about.

Suppose one of you has a servant ploughing or looking after the sheep. Would you say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? Would you rather not say ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? Would you thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’ (Luke 17: 7-10)

Why is it that we want accolades from people and rewards from God when we do what is expected of us? We treat God as though He owes us something because we have obeyed Him! Generosity is not about earning Brownie points. It’s about showing how deeply we value God’s mercy to us that He has rescued us from our self-destructive greed and changed our hearts towards Him and towards the people around us. We show it by the way we treat people who have wronged us or who are less fortunate than we are.

Jesus taught something about stewardship which we either tend not to notice or to ignore because it seems to out of keeping with who He is.

Jesus told the story about a manager who was about to be fired for mismanaging his master’s finances (Luke 16: 1-9). The man quickly bought favour from the master’s debtors by reducing their debts. When the master found out what he had done, instead of condemning him, he commended him for his shrewdness. Jesus ended His story with a very puzzling comment. What do you make of this Scripture?

I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. (Luke 16: 9)

First of all, we need to be careful about spiritualising this parable. The story is about a dishonest man who was generous with his master’s money to win friends so that, when he no longer had a job they would be generous to him. Jesus did not commend his dishonesty but the principle – generosity gains you favour with people.

His next few comments open up the meaning even more.

Whoever can be trusted with very little can be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own? (Luke 16:10-12)

The point of the parable is that the manager was the steward of his master’s property. He had a greater obligation to be trustworthy with what was not his than with what was his own, because he was accountable to his master for what he did with it.

In the same way, we are stewards of what God has given to us and we are accountable to Him for the way we use it. He has instructed us how to apportion it so that we care for those in our circle of responsibility before we take care of our own needs. When we are faithful to carry out our Master’s instructions and use what He has given us in obedience to Him, only then can He give us greater responsibility in the life to come.

Does it shock or surprise you to realise that the level of authority you will have in God’s eternal kingdom will depend on the way you handle your money and possessions in this life? This is how seriously Jesus took the issue of money and why He had so much to say about it.

This leads me to the final point about the way a disciple uses his resources. There are serious consequences for greed, selfishness and disregard for the poor, the widow, the orphan and the alien.

(To be continued…)

Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my first book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3,                                                                              eBook 978-4828-0511-6

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or Kindle version, on www.takealot.com  or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

Do you like this post? Then buy your own copy of my book, Learning to be a Disciple, which is also available from www.amazon.com or www.takealot.com in South Africa. You can also order a copy directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com

Watch this space!

My latest book, The Heartbeat of Holiness, will also soon be available.

You Are Light – Be Light

Christian Life, , ,

YOU ARE LIGHT – BE LIGHT

You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on a stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let you light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven (Matt. 5:14-16).

Salt and light – both essential for life. Just as corrupted salt loses its value and is good for nothing but to be discarded, so is a light that is hidden away of no use to the members of the household.  Why would one bother to light a lamp if it is not used to light a room? The purpose of a lamp is to enable those in the house to see.

But, at the same time, didn’t Jesus tell His disciples not to do their good deeds in front of people in order to gain their admiration? Which one did He mean? Did He contradict Himself? Not at all! We must examine His use of “light” in the context of Old Testament usage.

“Light” was the first word spoken, and the first thing God established on the shapeless and empty earth in the process of creation.

And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light (Gen 1:3).

Strangely enough, though, He only created the heavenly bodies on day four (Gen.1 14-15). What provided the light that God spoke on day one?

John 1:1-5 gives us a commentary on Genesis 1. John presents Jesus as both the Word and the Light. Before God created physical light, Jesus, the second Person of the Trinity, provided light on the earth.

The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world (John 1:9).

The Old Testament often used light as a metaphor for the Word of God. For example:

Your Word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path (Psa. 119:105).

To be light, therefore, in the light of Old Testament usage, is to be a person whose lives his life according to the instructions of God’s Word. When Jesus claimed to be the light of the world, He was, in effect, confirming His purpose to “fulfil the Law” (Matt. 5:17). By fulfilling He meant that He had come to do what the Law both said and intended, not according to what the religious leaders considered “fulfilling” but according to God’s intention from the beginning.

Being light is much more than doing a few “good works”. Being the light is living according to the instructions God gave His people for living the best life which included not only obeying the Law but also being motivated by the right attitude to God’s instructions. Jesus showed, by His life, that obedience was much more than just keeping the letter of the Law. Without a heart of love for God and for one’s neighbour, obedience is nothing more than outwards acts which have no meaning to God without the right heart.

Deeds without a heart are like an unlit lamp. However, a life lived to reflect the true nature of Jesus, through the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, is like a lamp that shines in the darkness. Unlike the Pharisees, who paraded their good works to win the approval of simply out of love for Him, unconsciously reflects the light of God’s Word everywhere, like a lamp on a lampstand.

Jesus wanted His disciples to understand the difference between a person who did the right thing on the outside but whose heart was still greedy and selfish, and the one whose life reflected his love for Jesus by his heart attitude as well as his deeds. This inner “light” is not something a person can create by outward behaviour. It is the light of God’s life within that comes from Jesus’ indwelling presence through the Holy Spirit.

Jesus is the Word made flesh. Only as He lives His life through the believer, can He become the Word made flesh within. Those who try to copy His life without His life within are no better than the Pharisees who tried to live “righteous” lives by doing the right thing with hearts that remained unchanged. Jesus called them “whited sepulchres”, painted on the outside but full of dead bones.

Only the Spirit of God can bring life to our dead spirits. It is a work of God which He does in the heart of a person who “sees the light” and responds in faith to Jesus’ words.

For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ (2 Cor. 4:6).

Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my first book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3,                                                                              eBook 978-4828-0511-6

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or Kindle version, on www.takealot.com  or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

My second book, Learning to be a Disciple – The Way of the Master (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing), a companion volume to Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart, has been released in paperback and digital format on www.amazon.com.

For more details, check my website:

http://luellaannettecampbell.com/

Have you read my blogs on www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com ?