Tuesday, July 27, 2004
ABOUT GIVING AND RECEIVING
Motives for giving money, goods and/or favors to a charitable organization, church or an individual, are often improper or even evil. But motives for giving these things may also be, and often are, proper and holy. But motives for giving are also often misinterpreted. It is this latter situation I want to address in this entry.
We must always be careful about receiving favors (whether monetary or otherwise) from anyone. We teach children (and rightfully so) not to take money, items or favors from strangers. The more discerning parent will also instruct the child to be careful about taking these things even from people they know.
This caution is necessary, given the fallen world in which we live. But it is so sad that it must be this way. I would admit that possibly many people who give to others probably do so with an ulterior motive. It might be to buy acceptance or privileges. It might be to buy friendship or sexual liberties with an individual. So it seems all acts of generous giving must be suspect – at least for a time.
It seems difficult (if not impossible) for most people to believe that there are those in this world capable of loving so deeply and guilelessly that they would give generously of time, money or possessions without any expectation of any kind of recognition, reward or reciprocation. We have learned by instruction and our own experience that there is no such thing as a "free lunch". We have been conditioned to think that there is no possibility that someone could so deeply love another person that they would want to given unselfishly to that person – even to the extent of giving their life for that person.
But it can happen. It does happen. (John 15:13; Romans 5:7). You may have been the recipient of the expressions of that kind of pure love. If so, how did you react? If you are like most you became suspicious of the person and their motives. You probably refused their expressions of love and tried to stop those expressions all together. (You can stop the expressions of love but you can’t stop the person from loving.)
And maybe you should have done so. Maybe the person’s motives weren’t pure. If that was the case, you were right to break off those expressions of what was purported to be love. But what if you misjudged the person’s motives?
Also, If you were the object of someone’s genuine love and you rejected their love by rejecting the tangible or intangible expressions of their love, something else may be involved.
Instead of being discerning and cautious you may just have been prideful. Pride manifests itself in a number of ways. Sinful pride says, "I can do this myself!" "I can provide for myself." "I don’t need your help." When you take that attitude toward someone who truly loves you and wants to express that love, you do several things.
First, you are guilty of the sin of pride. The Bible talks a lot about sinful pride. But that’s not the subject of this Post. Sinful pride can prevent us from being able to accept another’s love and thus rob us – and the other person – of a ton of blessings that could be enjoyed.
Also, by your prideful attitude in refusing to accept another person’s love and their expressions of their love, you cut off God’s channel of blessing to you. God has chosen to work through His people to bless us. When we refuse to let someone show his or her love, we may have cut off God’s blessing if God was choosing to bless us through that person. Then we not only hurt the person who loves us and wants to express that love, but we hurt God as well because we won’t let Him bless us as He desires because He loves us so much. And we hurt ourselves because we don’t receive the blessings that otherwise could be ours.
I know the scenario I just described rarely happens. But I also know it DOES happen. There are people capable of loving God or another person so deeply and with pure motives that they give out of the overflowing abundance of that love. And they usually get hurt, too.
Oh well! When you truly love you can’t help but give—to God and to one of God’s children whom you love deeply. And probably you are bound to get hurt. But you have to give anyway – God did and He got hurt, too!
I’m thinking that if we can’t accept someone’s genuine expressions of love, can we really fully accept God’s expressions of love – especially His greatest expression of love, the gift of His Son? I don’t know, but I wonder about that.
Jim
posted by jim 3:08 PM 0 comments
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