It Is More Blessed To Give Than To Receive

December 1st, 2009 | rpickett | Bible, Love of Wisdom, Spirituality

This is a great truth spoken by Jesus. We have record of it only by Paul where he mentions it in Acts 20:25 “I have shewed you all things, how that so laboring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

Genyen plis benediksyon nan bay ke resevwa. Sa se yon gwan verite ke Jezu te pale, nou jwen Selman Paul ki te anregiste sa Le li mansione nan Act 20:25 mwen te separe[pataje] tout bagay ave-w, ou men-m ki fo dwe supote feb yo, e pou sonje pawol Senye Jezu, koman l-te di, ’genyen plis benediksyon nan bay ke resevwa’.

There are two things to be learned from this passage, the first is by examining this statement alone, the second is by seeing it set in it’s context.

Genyen de bagay pou apran-n de pasaj sa, premye; se pou examine declarasyon sa sel dezyem; se pou we l-rete nan men-m kontex la.

The Three Blessings

Twa Benediksyon Yo

There are actually three blessings in giving. The first is in the fact that we have received from God already. This is the first blessing, that God has blessed us, that he meets our needs. Sometimes (perhaps I should say often, or all too often) we forget that it is a blessing that God even meets our needs. Meditate on that for a moment. God blesses us by even meeting our needs – we could go without, and would, without his direct action in our life. When we take the time to think about our real needs and how God has met them we develop a deep gratitude and spirit of thankfulness. This spirit of thankfulness is the full experience of the blessing of having our needs met. Without developing genuine thankfulness we don’t really experience the full benefit of the blessings of our met needs.

Genyen actuelmen twa benediksyon nan bay. Premye a, an efe nou gentan recevwa li de Bon Dieu. Sa se premye benediksyon, ke BonDye te beni nou Sa ve di li pran swen bezwen nou yo. Pafwa [petet mwen ta dwe di sa souven ou pli souven] nou bliye ke se yon benediksyon le BonDieu pran swen bezwen nou yo – nou te kab ale san direksyon li nan vi nou. Le nou pran tan pou nou panse a vre bezwen nou yo e koman Bon Dye pran swen yo nou develope yon bon atitud e yon espwi de remesiman. Espwi de remesiman sa se yon gwan esperyans de benediksyon ke bezwen nou yo pran swen. San devlopman de yon gran remesiman nou pa vreman fe esperyans plan benefit de benediksyon de bezwen nou yo.

The second blessing is that not only does he give us “enough” to meet our needs, he gives us above this, he gives us “more than enough”. This too is all to often forgotten, we only focus on all the unfulfilled wants we have in our life and they look to us like they are bigger and more important than our needs. Because we have our needs fulfilled they don’t draw our attention, only all the things that we don’t yet have. When we take the time to see how God has given us “exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ask or think” it further develops the spirit of gratitude. Only From this spirit of gratitude we can really appreciate the true blessings God has given us and the blind craving we have for our wants to be met, and all the dissatisfaction that comes when they’re not, fades away to it’s proper perspective – we’re blessed if God never meets any more of our wants, true contentedness sets in. “Having food and raiment, let us be therewith content.”

Dezyeme benediksyon an se pa Selman li ba nou ‘ase’ pou beswen nou yo, lib a nou plis ke sa, lib a nou “plis ke ase”. Sa tou souven bliye, nou Selman vise sou bagay ki pa realize ke nou genyen nan vi nou e yap gade sou nou komsi yo bi g Genyen plis benediksyon nan bay ke resevwa sa se yon gwan verite ke Jezu te pale, nou jwen Selman Paul ki te anregiste sa le li mansione nan Act 20:25 mwen te separe[pataje] tout bagay ave-w, ou men-m ki fo dwe supote feb yo, e pou sonje pawol Senye Jezu, koman l-te di, ’genyen plis benediksyon nan bay ke resevwa’.

The third blessing comes from giving to those in need from the abundance of the blessings God has given us. The first two blessings come from being the recipient, the third from being the vessel God uses to bless others through, literally the agent of God. We have a song, the chorus goes like this: “Until you’ve known the loving hand that reaches down to a fallen man, And lifts him up from out of sin where he has trod; Until you’ve known just how it feels to know that God is really real; Then you’ve known nothing until you’ve known the love of God.” This song isn’t really true. At best it’s half-true.

When you are the recipient of love you haven’t really known love, you’ve only known it’s effect. To truly know the love of God we have to know it from the perspective of experiencing what it is to love others as God loves them. Then we aren’t just the recipients of his love, we are the ones experiencing the love as he does, having the same love for others just like him.

It is from this vantage point that we live in the third blessing. When we love others enough to give to them out of the abundance of the blessing that God has given us, we move into a position where we have a deep knowing that we have everything we need. We are giving to others from this position of having everything. We no longer have any worry. We have no fear. We know we have everything we need, and everything we will need for the others that God has given to us to help. God lives from the perspective of not needing anything. What does he need? This is why he has no fear – he has everything. And he wants us to live from this perspective with him.

Living in the third blessing is living a life of abundance. And the only way to live in this blessing is to give.

Thus it is more blessed to give than to receive.

May you see that the life you live is one of abundance and give of your abundance to those around you