Wednesday, February 4, 2009

The Joy of Giving - Showing God's Kindness and Mercy

Friend, somebody needs your hug today. Somebody needs your love. Somebody needs to feel your touch. You may not realize it, but there is healing in your hands. There is healing in your voice. God wants to use you to bring hope, healing, love, and victory to people wherever you go. If you'll dare to take your mind off your troubles, get your mind off your own needs and, instead, seek to be a blessing to other people, God will do more for you than you could even ask or think.

It's not enough to think kind compliments; we need to express them. As the old saying puts it: "Love is not love until you give it away." We should get up each morning with an attitude that says: I'm going to make somebody else happy today. I'm going to help meet somebody else's need. Don't go through life as a taker; become a giver.

When you focus on being a blessing, God makes sure that you are always blessed in abundance. We should concentrate more on being a blessing than trying to be blessed. We need to look for opportunities to share God's love, His gifts, and His goodness with others. The truth is, the more you help others, the more God will make sure that you are helped.

If you have things lying around your house or in storage that you are never going to use again, why not give those things away to someone who could use them? When you do good for other people, that's when God is going to make sure that His abundant blessings overtake you. You must be faithful in the little you have right now before God will bless you with more.

Giving is a spiritual principle. Whatever you give will be given back to you. If you give a smile, you will receive smiles from others. If you are generous to people in their time of need, God will make sure that other people are generous to you in your time of need. What you make happen for others, God will make happen for you.

You must be faithful with what you have, then God will trust you with more. You may not have a lot of extra money to give, but you can buy somebody's dinner every once in a while. You can give somebody a kind word. You can go out of your way to pray for somebody in need. Now is the time to develop and attitude of giving.

Somebody needs what you have to give. It may not be your money; it may be your time. It may be your listening ear. It may be your arms to encourage. It may be your smile to uplift. Who knows? Putting your arm around somebody and letting him or her know that you care can help begin to heal that person's heart. Maybe you can give a rescuing hug.

Don't live for yourself; learn to give yourself away, and your life will make a difference.

How we treat other people can have a great impact on the degree of blessings and favor of God we are experiencing in our lives. Are you good to people? Are you kind and considerate? Do you speak and act with love in your heart and regard other people as valuable and special? Friend, you can't treat people poorly and expect to be blessed. You can't be rude and inconsiderate and expect to live in victory.

Keep in mind, hurting people often hurt other people as a result of their own pain. If somebody is rude and inconsiderate, you can almost be certain that they have some unresolved issues inside. The Bible says, "Love overlooks a person's faults." That's not always easy, but love believes the best in every person. Anybody can return evil for evil, but God wants His people to help heal wounded hearts. If somebody is not treating you right today, go out of your way to be kinder than usual to that person.

You may have people in your life who have done you great wrong, and you have a right to be angry and bitter. You may feel as though your whole life has been stolen away by somebody who has mistreated you or deceived you. But if you will choose to let go of your grudge and forgive them, you can overcome that evil with good. You can get to the point where you can look at the people who have hurt you and return good for evil. If you do that, God will pour out His favor in your life in a fresh way. He will honor you; He will reward you, and He'll make those wrongs right.

No matter what you've gone through, no matter who hurt you or whose fault it was, let it go. Don't try to get even. Don't hold a grudge. Don't try to pay them back. God says show mercy. Aim for kindness. Seek to do good.

Maybe you feel that you're the one who's doing all the giving in some situation. Perhaps you are the one who's always going the extra mile. Because people know you are kind, generous, and friendly, they tend to take advantage of you or not appreciate you. But God sees your integrity. Nothing that you do goes unnoticed by God. He's keeping the records, and He will reward you in due time.

Don't grow weary in well doing. God is a just God, and He sees not just what you are doing but why you are doing it. God judges our motives as well as our actions. And because of your unselfishness, because you prefer others, because you're aiming for kindness, one day God will say to you as He did to Abraham, "As far as you can see, I'm going to give it to you."

When you are kind to people, when you go around doing good to people, God arranges for others to leave behind "handfuls" of good things for you.

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