Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift! 2 Corinthians 9:15
“In the incarnation, God did not send an angel to come to man’s rescue but He came down Himself and provided for man. God expects us to respond personally to the needs of people around us not only teaching and appealing to others to help…In God’s economy, He expects us to share generously our possessions and money in a way that no one among his children will be lacking. The only reason He keeps on giving to us is that we may always have and always give generously…
We must not only give to those we think are worthy to receive our assistance. To do that is to treat the grace and love of God with contempt. Jesus calls us to handle our possessions radically different from the world, to the point of providing for those communities’ men see as unworthy of care. Our good deeds towards people should not be motivated by temporal reciprocity but based on our obedience to God’s order and our desire to follow the example of Christ…
Based on God’s mercy, grace and unconditional love towards us in rescuing us while we were still sinners, we must respond to such a limitless and indescribable gift of God to us by demonstrating a timeless and limitless generosity to all needy, poor and oppressed, starting from our Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the utmost part of the world. Our generosity according to God’s economy must transcend race, nationality, continent based only and only on God’s revealed heart to us about giving, money and possession. We must look beyond the receiver to see Christ’s love for us.”
Nuekpe Dieudonne Komla, student at Torch Trinity Graduate University, in his Philosophy of Biblical Stewardship Paper dated 2 July 2017. Grading these papers blessed me so much! Komla pastors in Ghana and plans to implement what he learned in 2018 so that he can give testimony to other churches and wants to invite me to teach his whole denomination in West Africa in 2019. Make it so, Lord Jesus.
Komla makes many great points in his paper, but two are noteworthy. The incarnation of Christ models for each of us the posture of our generosity. In God’s economy, we are His hands and feed to “respond personally” to the needs of people in need. Simultaneously, we must joyfully bless others with all God supplies because of God’s limitless love for us. To do this we must “look beyond the receiver” as Komla notes, to the matchless love of Christ for us, whose great love motivated Him to empty Himself for us.