We have been freely given so many blessings from God, both earthly and spiritual blessings. We don’t even know all of the blessings that we have received. God gives to His beloved even in his sleep. Psalm 127:2. I think this verse carries two meanings: God gives us good sleep as a blessing, and God gives us blessings even while we sleep. God even gives us “… the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God,” 1 Corinthians 2:12. In summary, Romans 8:32 presents us with this most beautiful logic: “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?”
So, let us not hold our blessings with a tight fist close to our chest as if those are the only blessings that we will ever receive from God. Let us trust God that He will refill us with blessings. Let us freely give and use the blessings, both earthly and spiritual, for the good of others. Let us trust God to replenish us.
Matthew 10:8 commands: “”Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. Freely you received, freely give.” The message for us in this verse is to be extravagant. We should shock others by what great things we do for them and how much we do for them.
The man who fears the LORD “has given freely to the poor, His righteousness endures forever; His horn will be exalted in honor.” Psalm 112:9.
What prompted this article was two things. First, I recognized in myself and other Reformed people a tendency to get smug. We are content to be in our “elect bubble” and “Tsk! Tsk!” the rest of the world that we see plunging into all kinds of misery. I didn’t like my attitude when I read about the coming evangelical collapse in a March 10, 2009 article in the Christian Science Monitor. Second, I received mercy from my instructor in my “Zumba” exercise class today. I had been recovering from a cough, but I was still very much out of it and could not keep up. I was completely “out of sinc” and even had to walk out of the class a couple of times. Rather than making me feel that I should not have tried to be in class today, my instructor showed great kindness by making me feel like she was glad that I was in the class and by slowing down and showing me how to do the movement.
“Why do you boast in evil, O mighty man? The lovingkindness of God endures all day long.” Psalm 52:1. Our lovingkindness should also endure all day long.
We are too quick to pronounce the end of the world and give up on people. Instead, we should be like God who so patiently deals with all kinds of sinful people: elect and non-elect. Upon the elect, God lavishes the riches of grace. See Ephesians 1:3-8. Even upon the non-elect, although without grace toward them, God “endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction”. Romans 9:22.
But, let God judge. It is our duty to love our neighbor. Let us shock the world by how freely we give.
Reformed Doctrine Daily Devotions 