The God Who Gives

The God Who Gives

God is the one who provides seed for the farmer and then bread to eat. In the same way, he will provide and increase your resources and then produce a great harvest of generosity in you. 2 Corinthians 9:10

“YOU CAN’T OUTGIVE GOD.” It’s a common saying among those who have increased their giving over time. They have found that the more they inch up their donations to Kingdom-oriented ministries, the more God inches up—or pours out—his abundance on them. This is no formula, of course; otherwise, people would be giving in order to get. But it is a biblical principle that generally proves true. The cycle of giving begins with God’s generosity, which results in ours, which prompts a response from God in increasing measure, which prompts a response on our end in increasing measure, and on and on it goes.

It makes sense, doesn’t it? This is how planting and harvests work on the farm. It’s also how we become apples who haven’t fallen far from the tree, the image of our generous Father who wants us to give in the same spirit that he gives—cheerfully. Paul wrote that God loves a cheerful giver (verse 7), and he used the same word we get hilarious from. God loves those who laugh because of their overwhelming joy when they give. We join in his cycle of generosity when we take what he has given and spread it to others with the same generosity of spirit he has shown us. God gives more to those who give more.

The same principle is true in the realm of prayer. Answered prayer comes more readily to those who will do something fruitful with the answers. If you are known as a sower, you can expect an increase to your seed. If you pray for opportunities for fruitfulness, you will need to be fruitful in them to benefit yourself and others. If you pray for more financial resources, you need to be the kind of person who handles financial resources in God’s ways. If you pray for lasting, eternal value, invest it lastingly and eternally. God provides seed and growth and abundance for those who sow in generosity and faith and gratitude.

A man there was, though some did count him mad; the more he cast away, the more he had.