Joy Overflowing

Christmas morning in America is an event.  For parents it can mean buying, wrapping, and hiding gifts culminating in one sleepless night of getting to bed late and being startled awake at 4 am to open the gifts.  For children, it is a special time of expectation and exhilaration.  It is an all-too familiar scene before the sun peaks its head over the horizon to bring in the new day, a springy, pigtailed, four-year-old girl wakes up and rushes into her parents room, leaps onto the bed with exuberance and joy.

Many of us might be able to empathize with such a scenario of overwhelming, reckless expectation of joy being fulfilled.  Unfortunately, by adulthood many of us have become dulled to exuberant joy.  We equate joy with a good day at work, a long weekend, some time with family and friends, a new toy, or a raise.  But the biblical understanding of joy might be more like the pigtailed four-year-old than we would imagine and it might challenge our normal less-than correct understandings of joy.

Just like the springy girl running into her parents bedroom to wake them up in order to receive her presents, joy works in a similar way.  Our joy is a matter of reception, in that, we receive our joy from the Lord Himself.  More correctly, He bestows His joy, depositing it within us.  He does this in three basic ways.  The first is through His commandment, His Word.  When we study His Word, when we keep the words within them in our hearts and on our lips, God fills us with His joy (Psa. 19:8; John 15:10-11).

Secondly, God grants joy to those in His presence (Psa. 16:11, 34:5-8, ).  This should come as no surprise because as God is the source of joy, joy is a result of being in His presence.  Much like a faucet is a source of water, if I put my hand under its spicket in its presence, I will get wet for my proximity.  Therefore, when we seek and find His presence we will find joy from the giver of joy.

The other medium for joy is that it is a gift, given us directly by the Holy Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23).  When we humble ourselves in repentance and reverence at the awesomeness of the Holy Lord, He gifts us with fruits.  One of these fruits is joy (Psa. 69:2).  This should compel us to get on our knees to seek the Lord for the reception of joy.  Or, like the pigtailed leaper aforementioned, we should run with exuberant expectation of the joy of the Lord for it is the ultimate joy, found only in Him.  Therefore, praise God who gives us His joy overflowing!

Generosity of God

Ernest Shackleton, a principal of the early expeditions of Antarctica, was one of the first explorers to make his way nearly all the way to the south pole.  In 1908, on one such journey, his party, having reached as far as they could, found themselves struggling in a life-threatening fight against starvation to return to their ship, barely surviving on less-than a half-ration a day diet.

At some point, the expedition seemed hopelessly doomed when the party reached the end of their rations as one last hardtrack, a dried biscuit, was given to each man.  Some of the men ate their biscuit upon reception while others simply packed it away to tide them over for the remainder of their arduous journey.  Needless to say, the party's morale was abysmally low and one man in particular was nearing death by starvation.

On a certain evening, while most of the party was asleep in their hooch tents, one of the explorers was awoken by a noise.  He looked across the dark of the tent over his sleeping companions to see Shackleton looking through someone else's things.  The man recognized that it was the starving man's bag that Shackleton was rummaging through and he nearly gasped in disbelief and disappointment.  But to the man's surprise, Shackleton pulled the biscuit out of his own pack and put it in the starving man's.  

Shackleton sacrificed his own ration for the good of another, not knowing when or even if he would have enough for himself.  In the end, the expedition made it back to their ship and, ultimately, back to England, where Shackleton was promptly knighted for his valor and fortitude.  Shackleton became a national hero for his efforts, but it was his sacrificial leadership in giving that is most remarkable.

We should take on the same sort of attitude in giving as generously and without reservation as Shackleton did.  Scripture says that "God loves a cheerful giver (2 Cor. 9:7)" and, "A generous man will prosper (Pro. 11:25)" and, "A generous man himself will be blessed (Pro. 22:9)."  Generosity will be met with blessings form the Lord, which should remind us that God gives to us all we need.  As if this was not evidence enough to support a certain biblical ethic of generosity, consider the words of Christ Himself:

" Jesus said, 'Give, and it will be given to you.  Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap.  For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you (Luke 6:38).'"

God desires for us to be His acting agents of compassion and generosity.  Therefore, we need to make every effort to be supernaturally generous.  This is not to overlook the natural challenges to generosity, namely our flesh and selfishness.  Rather, it should prompt us to become more reliant on God to grant us the strength to open our hands in generosity instead of closing our fists to clench on to what we think is ours.  The principle can be simply summarized in, the more freely we give to others in love the more we will receive from God, who blessed those who give generously.

For God does and will provide for us beyond our dreams if we would give to others with a generosity that is overflowing.  And, like Shackleton, we should seek to give for the good of others in the denial of ourselves.  Let us then look to Christ so as to give generously with no mind for repayment but only to love God by loving those whom He loves!

Generosity and Godliness

Love and generosity go hand in hand.  One cannot be loving and simultaneously not generous.  In fact, the highest definition of love coincides with the most generous human act, namely that one would give of one's self for their friends (John 15:13).  The point is that love is generous and because Christians are to be ultimately loving, we need to become a people of generosity.

This can be a difficult concept to grasp because of the challenges inherent to generosity, chief among them being the self.  Generosity, by way of definition, is a quality of kindness that strikes at the manner and intent of the heart in its output of love.  In its essential form, generosity refers to a willingness to give at the expense of self.  Very quickly, then, the gravity of generosity in the life of a believer becomes clear and sobering.

Because Christ Jesus has given us everything, we have no right to hoard and to clutch to that which we would like to claim as our own.  Truly, the only part of ourselves that we can claim is our faith which, as should seem clear, is merely the conduit by which God's grace may enter our lives.  When we give ourselves to the Lord, we give the ownership of self over to God and become His, slaves to His will and righteousness (Rom. 6:20-22).

Therefore, because all we are is not in actuality ours but belongs to the One who has given it to us, we should be generous as a response to the grace that has been shown us.  This can be a challenging proposition because we so like to clammer and cling to our fleshly identities and worldly possessions.  However, God asks us to invest every resource to give every part of ourselves so as to collect a heavenly treasure that is eternal (Matt. 6:19-20).

Generosity can be hard until we realize what it means.  When we are generous, meaning that we give of ourselves be it time or resource, we are engaging in relationship with the Lord as His love, His very character is passing through us in love to whomever we are being generous towards.  In a sense, we become His hands and feet, the physical agents of His supreme generosity.  It we want, then, to feel more of God's presence in our lives, we only need, by faith and discernment, improve our generosity. Thus we will grow in Him as we begin to love more like Him.  Let us then pray for the opportunities to be generous so as to love Him as He has loved us!