“It is more blessed to give than receive.” These are words that we hear often during the Christmas season. However, whenever I hear it, I usually have this little “cringy” sort of thing in the back of my neck. (No. “Cringy” isn’t a word, but it’s the perfect adjective for my feeling.) Here’s why I feel this thing:
James 1:16-17a – “Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.”
Ultimately, Jesus is the only giver. We can’t be givers ourselves, unless we have received from Him first. We must first be receivers before we can become givers. Anything I can give to someone else, well…anything that’s worth giving, in some way first came from Jesus himself. Maybe this is also part of why He made this statement. He understood that anyone who is a giver has already received from Him. We become “more blessed” when it all comes full circle and we begin to reflect who He is as the giver.
Psalm 23:1 – “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.”
If we are in Christ, we are given all that we need. There’s nothing we need that He will not provide. This is the meaning of the phrase “shall not want.” It means He will provide and we can live satisfied and confident that we will be given all that we truly need. As people who have all that we need, we are in the perfect position to share. . . to give. When we realize that most of our stuff is just stuff and the things we truly need can not be taken away, it becomes much easier to give. Not only is it easier to give, but giving actually becomes a natural expression of the love we have for others. We also begin to reflect the character of Christ to others as well. At that point, we also become more grateful to Christ for all that we have been given and ultimately, we worship and glorify Him.
So, I’m in agreement with Jesus. “It is more blessed to give than receive.” But I’d like to point out to the world that we can’t give until we have first become receivers of the greatest gift in the world – Salvation in Jesus Christ. That alone is the greatest blessing, but we become EVEN MORE blessed when we begin giving to others out of this abundance. Our primary position is one of “receiver” and then our goal should be to become a “giver.” Or maybe the better way to say it is that our primary position should be to “give” good gifts understanding that the only way to do that is to receive from Christ first?
What do you guys think?
PS – I don’t think this has any real bearing on my previous thoughts, but it’s interesting to me that these words of Jesus (“It is more blessed to give than to receive.”) are not recorded in the Gospels. They are recounted by Paul (Acts 20:35) as he speaks to the Ephesian elders. There are many things that Jesus said which are not recorded in the Gospels themselves, but this is the only one which is referred to by Scripture itself.
We met under the cover of night. We slipped into our cars and cautiously veered around the road blocks – careful not to draw attention to ourselves. We communicated quietly or with our eyes so as not to make much noise. We handled the goods with care as we swiped the merchandise from it’s location and transported it to the designated area. By the time we had finished, we had relocated all the goods without any issues. Everyone had done their job flawlessly. The cops didn’t suspect anything. The items were delivered and we were safe in our homes celebrating a successful mission.
1. Watch “A Christmas Story” 5 times in a row on TBS.
33. See Andrew Peterson’s “Behold the Lamb” Christmas production (or at least listen to the recording each year.)
37. Watch the “Nativity Story” movie.
Is anyone else frustrated by the materialism that Christmas has become? We say we’re celebrating Jesus’ birth, but I wonder if he’d be happy with the way we “celebrate?” If you go to someone’s birthday party, do you get the presents? How did we get this turned around? Are we really helping our kids by giving them everything they want? Why aren’t we giving to Jesus instead of each other? We have some friends at a church called Ecclesia in Houston who decided to do something about it. Led by their pastor Chris Seay, they are taking a different approach to Christmas. It’s a conspiracy to take back the true meaning of Christmas. Chris says that he believes that 100 years from now, people will look back at the way Americans celebrate Christmas and feel about the same way we do about the practice of selling indulgences. They’ll be disgusted. Anyway, they are focusing their giving on Jesus. Instead of buying gifts for other people who don’t need them, they are taking the money they’d spend on gifts and giving it to “Living Water International.” They provide people in 3rd world countries with clean drinking water. I think it’s good idea and I bet Jesus likes it too.