September 21st
Give
Proverbs 11:24–25 (ESV)
24One gives freely yet grows all the richer; another withholds what he should give, and only suffers want. 25Whoever brings blessing will be enriched, and one who waters will himself be watered.
You may recall the story of the early disciples preaching the gospel in the town of Thessalonica in the book of Acts. Some believed, but some got pretty upset as is always the case. An angry mob gathered on the steps of “city hall” and shouted, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also!!” (Acts 17:1-9)
Spiritual truths do not make any sense to a fallen world. No wonder those angry Thessalonians were upset. The world they knew was “right-side up,” and anyone teaching things contrary to life as they knew it was turning their world upside down.
The wisest man who ever lived, Solomon, is giving us a “world-flipping” truth about life here in this Proverb. It sounds a lot like Jesus when he said, “You must lose your life to find it.”
Read the Proverb above one more time…
The “giver” is the one who “gains.” The “withholder” – the one who puts what he has in a bucket and sits on the bucket – ends up with nothing. The one who “gives water” actually “gets water.” (Don’t miss that “water” for a desert people is LIFE.)
Interestingly, the NIV translates verse 25…
25A generous man will prosper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.
Perhaps we could paraphrase the Proverb in our own vernacular like this.
In God’s economy, “Givers get much more than they ever give; Getters lose all they ever gained.”
A more biblical perspective of the world is that in rebellion against God, it is upside down. When we live generous lives, we are actually turning things right-side up!
Let’s pray this prayer together…
Lord we come, we see, and we give because your Word tells us it is only in our giving that we actually gain. Help us to live in such a way that when we give generously, that part of the world would actually be turned “right-side up!”
(I cannot help but think of what God did through you all with El Shaddai.)
