We are all devoted to something. Simply pull back the curtain of our life and it will be obvious. Some of us are fans of our favorite sports team. You can tell because we have season tickets, wear the colors everyday and fly the flag on our house. Some of us are devoted to our kids and we let them dictate to us adults how things are going to go in the home. Some of us are devoted to our careers and our marriages, parenting and spiritual life suffer for it.
But Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 6) to invest in things that will last forever. Don’t waste time investing in things that will eventually fall apart. Jesus essentially says that we were created to pour, not store.
There is a story of a guy who was a great farmer who had a scarcity mindset. He was good at his job although he didn’t give any credit to God nor did he think about others. He simply thought about himself. He had a mindset of scarcity so he wasn’t willing to share or have a relationship with others and include them in the blessing God had given him. Luke 12 is where Jesus tells that story. Jesus reminds us in that story we are created to pour, not store.
Jesus tells another story in Luke 7 about a woman who had an abundant mindset. She was willing to give and share and include. So Jesus is invited to this dinner party at a religious leader’s house and once seated at the dinner table, a prostitute comes in and kneels behind Jesus and at his feet. The text says her tears fell on his feet and she wiped her tears with her hair. She had also brought an expensive bottle of perfume which she broke and poured over his feet. She had a mindset of abundance. She realized we were created to pour not store.
Then Jesus is preaching to this large crowd in another story found in Luke 9. We call it the feeding of the 5000. The people are getting tired and hungry and the only thing to eat is a little boy’s lunch which consist of 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. Once Jesus has the sack lunch, he divides it up so that everyone, all 5000+, has enough to eat! They even have 12 baskets of leftovers. It’s a reminder we serve a God who always provides more than enough. And there is a principle we can learn here which should flow into every part of our life: what you keep is all you have but what you give, God will multiply.
We are created to pour and not store. So, during this Thanksgiving season, be someone with a generous heart. Generosity is not an act, it’s a posture of the heart. God’s promised to take care of us. You can’t out give God. He even challenges us to test him in this very idea in Malachi 3:10.
I know, like me, you’re thinking if I start being a person who pours out, who gives, who shares, I might have to rearrange my life…like putting God first. YEP! If I decide to give like Jesus did, well that would take some crazy faith in God. YEP! God’s promised to give us more if we live this way. So this season, discover how you can change your life to one that shows your fully devoted to how God has blessed you. Blessings on your journey.