Skip to main content

Give and be blessed, receive and bless

Isaac Blessing Jacob, painting by Govert Flinc...Image via Wikipedia
We know full well that our obedience counts as a blessing, especially in the realm of giving. But it's also true that our obedience in receiving can lead to a blessing. Sometimes our pride can get in the way when people seek to bless us by their giving but we should always be obedient in such matters.

Let me illustrate this and more by way of an example from my pastor. He was on a mission trip to Uganda and was visiting a number of churches. As things go he would often have a lot of people wanting to speak to him at the end of the services. In one instance he was confronted by an old man who insisted that he give my pastor his blanket, a somewhat well worn blanket which in reality would be no use for my pastor. So my pastor tried not to receive the blanket, thinking it would be of more use to the man but he was pulled up by the local pastor. He told my pastor that God is telling him to give what little he has and by not receiving you are taking away opportunity to be obedient to God. So my pastor gratefully received the blanket.

Further on in the mission trip he came across an old man who had nothing, literally nothing. Then my pastor remembered the blanket which he'd tried not to receive. And with that blanket he could bring a blessing to the man who had nothing.

It shows that nothing is as simple as it seems, even the process of giving and receiving. The old man got to be obedient to God. My pastor got to be obedient to God. And in his obedience could convey that blessing to the man with nothing. We always need to be aware that Christ is at the centre, not man or ourselves. We need to have faith to trust beyond what we see or expect.









Comments

  1. "Sometimes out pride can get in the way when people seek to bless us by their giving but we should always be obedient in such matters." I can really relate to that from personal experience.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Spammers, trolls and blatantly offensive posts will be summarily deleted. My blog, my rules. Otherwise comment away!

Popular posts from this blog

Sound familiar?

Watching the BBC interview of Adele by Graham Norton tonight and Adele sang one of the new tracks off her forthcoming album. The track was called A Million Years Ago. Listening to it reminded me of a different song by someone else. You know where you almost recognise a tune but get lost with the words, yet it's the words which are the key! Eventually it came to me, El Shaddai by Michael Card, famously sung by Amy Grant. It's a song that I occasionally play during worship. Have a listen. What do you think?

The Upper Rooms

We often think of the 'upper room' as being the place where Jesus and the Disciples held the Last Supper but the Bible has many more 'upper rooms'.

The Archbishop and Wonga

Image via CrunchBase Have to say I was initially chuffed to see the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby laying down a challenge to Wonga and others of their ilk. The AoC communicated that he wanted to see the payday loan industry driven out of business by promoting the use of credit unions. The payday loan industry is involved in outright usury which is condemned by many faiths such as Islam and Christianity and others. Usury we can look upon as the lending of money at exorbitant rates of interest. But then I thought what was the AoC actually saying? He wanted to replace excessive usury with not so excessive usury. Is that what we should be aiming for? Plus the architects of our current austerity are backing the AoC! I would love to see all of the credit industry driven out of business but it will only be done by paying workers a decent wage, sharing in the profit of their labour and making capitalism history. At the end of the day this sort of initiative is just a...