GPS Guide – November 18, 2019

CHEERFUL GIVER

Monday

Read: 2 Corinthians 9:6-15

⁶ Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. ⁷ Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. ⁸ And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. ⁹ As it is written:

“They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor;
    their righteousness endures forever.”

¹⁰ Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. ¹¹ You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God. ¹² This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of the Lord’s people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God. ¹³ Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, others 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. ¹⁴ And in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace God has given you. ¹⁵ Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift! (NIV 2 Corinthians 9:6-15)

Study: “God has the power to provide you with more than enough of every kind of grace” (verse 8). “You will be made rich in every way” (verse 11). The apostle Paul, certainly not a rich man by any human standard, wrote that! Even to people who lived in the large city of Corinth, he used the language of harvest, of God increasing their crop. He challenged them (and us) to rethink what “rich” and “more than enough” really mean. God sows generously. He asks us to produce a generous harvest. Paul’s specific focus was an offering from Gentile Christians to support suffering Jewish Christians in Jerusalem. Yet he kept talking about what God gives us: “everything you need always,” “every kind of grace” and “You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous in every way.” When (if ever) has a gift “left you speechless,” with no words to fully describe it? How would you compare that feeling your response to God’s gift(s) of which Paul spoke?

 Prayer: God of abundant life, teach me how to better calibrate my standard of “enough.” And grow in me a heart that cheerfully welcomes invitations to give to bless others. Amen.