To Encourage You

2 Corinthians 9:8 “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.”

One of the themes of the Bible is that God is a generous giver.  If we are to follow His example, we should be as well.  One of the places we are told this in the Old Testament is in Malachi 3:10: “Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.”  In Luke 6:38 Jesus puts it this way: “give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.”  The idea is that God gives and He gives abundantly.  As we receive from Him, we can all say with David, “My cup overflows” (Psalm 23:5). 

It is a characteristic of God that He routinely gives us more than enough for our own needs.  He abounds toward us, as Paul tells us in the passage from 2 Corinthians 9 above.  And why does He do this?  Is it so that we can just revel in all His blessings? Does He fill our cup to overflowing so that we can eat, drink, and be merry, or so that we will build bigger barns to store all the excess?  Hardly!  The consistent message of God’s Word to us is that God abounds toward us so that we will, in turn, abound towards others. It’s called “abound(ing) in every good work” in the verse above.  Our hearts are to be as a “river of living water” through which God’s abundance overflows to others, not a reservoir where we hoard everything that God has given us.  We are enabled and equipped to love others because He first loved us (1 John 4:19). We can comfort others in their afflictions with the comforts that we have received from the God of all Comfort (2 Corinthians 1:3-4), and we can encourage others because of the overflowing encouragement with which God has encouraged us.  As we fill our hearts and minds with the Word of God, we can, in turn, share that truth with others that God has placed in our path. 

May God help us to be those who are not only thankful for the many ways God has supplied our needs, but to then be vessels through which He can supply the needs of others.  Of course, God could meet each and every need of every person without us, but in His wonderful plan He has called us to be His coworkers and share in the realization that although it is wonderful to have all our needs be supplied by Him, it is even “more blessed to give than receive” (Acts 20:35).