Sunday, April 1, 2018

Year 8, Day 91: 2 Corinthians 8-9

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I have had the culmination of three aspects of my life come together in a way that displays the divine providence of God.  The first aspect is my blog and my daily reading.  The second aspect is my teaching career and my need for a quote for a painting that a student wants to do for me as her graduation present.  The third aspect is the coming of Easter and my personal reflection upon the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

In preparation for Easter, I’ve been looking through some of my favorite books.  One of them is the book Crazy Love by Francis Chan.  As I was reading that book, I came upon the following quote: “The thing that matters most is how we use what we have been given, not how much we make or do compared to someone else.  What matters is that we spend ourselves.” When I read that, I knew that was the quote I wanted to give to the student to include in her painting for my classroom.

Then I read the passage for today, Easter, April 1st.  Paul is talking about a collection that he is taking up to give to the Jewish orphans and widows in Jerusalem.  He is encouraging the Corinthians to give out of their abundance to fill the need of the people in Jerusalem.  In doing so, we can be assured that God will give out of His abundance so that our needs will be met.

The culmination of all of these things caused me to think beyond the obvious realm of money.  When we give out of our surplus, I think God wants us to think beyond our pocketbooks.  We can give of our time.  We can give of our love.  We can give of our patience.  We can give of our forgiveness.  There is so much that we can give because God’s abundance is poured out so faithfully upon each of us!

That is a true Easter message.  He gave us His own Son as a model for us to give to the world.  God spent Himself so that we can have life.  We now go and do likewise.

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