Being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of His holy people in the kingdom of light. Colossians 1:11-12
“God created Adam in the beginning, not because He needs the human race, but so that He might have a recipient of His generosity.
Moreover, God commanded us to follow Christ, not because He has any need of our service, but because He wants to give us salvation. To follow the Savior is to share in salvation, just as to follow the light is to gain the light.
People who are in the light do not themselves provide the light but are illuminated and made bright by it. They do not contribute anything to it but, by being illuminated, they receive the benefit of the light.
Similarly, to serve God does not mean giving Him any gift, nor has God any need of our service. On the contrary, it is He who gives to those who serve Him life, immortality, and eternal glory.
He rewards those who serve Him without deriving any benefit himself from their service: He is rich, He is perfect, He has no needs.
God requests human obedience so that His love and His pity may have an opportunity of doing good to those who serve Him diligently. The less God has need of anything, the more human beings need to be united with Him. Consequently, a human being’s true glory is to persevere in service to God.”
Irenaeus of Lyons (c. 130-200) in Against Heresies, 4. 25 (Harvey II, p. 184) as recounted in Drinking from the Hidden Fountain: A Patristic Breviary, Ancient Wisdom for Today’s World, ed. by Thomas Spidlik (Kalamazoo: Cistercian, 1994) 27.
I took the red-eye from Jakarta, Indonesia, to Seoul, South Korea last night, so the perseverance part of this post struck me while I read this on the long flight.
God does not need our generosity. He is generous by nature and blesses us to do good and bless others and reflect His light and love to a watching world.
In that light, our giving is no more than our participation in God’s generosity. God will bless people whether we participate with Him or not. It’s a profound idea.
It inspires us not to do things for Him but with Him, with His love and His pity (which is the ancient word for compassion). God help us show your pity and run with perseverance the race marked out for each of us. Amen.