Praise the Lord. Praise
the Lord for His generosity. Looking back in our lives, reflecting on the
Lord's generosity, I praise Him. His mercies are new every morning. Great is
His faithfulness. I have known quite a few who are involved with the mission
and ministry of the Gospel of our Lord through the witness of Wycliffe
translators. Even As I write this reflection I am thinking of those who are
brave and courageous in serving the Lord in some of the tough places in the
world today.
I was reading some of the
writings of Berny May from Wycliffe. He writes about the Aztec Indians in
southwestern Mexico. He says there is a peculiarity to their culture in which
people do not wish you well very often. He further said if you asked a skilled
craftsman how he learned to craft the wood, the craftsman would not want to tell
you. May said it is difficult to find teachers in that culture, because no one
wants to share. Even Christians find it difficult to share the gospel with other
people, because their culture propagates the concept of limited good. So, if I
wished you well, I would be giving away some of my happiness to you, which would
mean I had less happiness. According to the same principle, having a second
child means you cannot love the first child the same as you once did, because
there is limited love to give. To teach somebody a craft would mean you end up
with less knowledge, because you have given away part of what you possess. That
is mentality of scarcity, and many of us so live in fear that we will lose what
we have that we live self-protectively.
Jesus came down
to to earth to give us life and give it more abundantly. When we become
servants of Christ, we are called to live by the ethic of abundance. In Luke
6:38, Jesus says, "Give, and it will be given to you. Good measure,
pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For
with the measure you use it will be measured back to you." The measure you give
to others determines the size of the scoop that God will pour into your life.
But we prefer to look at the size of scoop that God is pouring into our lives
and let that determine how much we will give away, because we don't want to give
away too much. Here is the amazing concept that Jesus taught: It is the scoop
by which you give away that causes you to step into the dimension of the
abundance and generosity of God. Matthew
6:33 says, "Seek first the
kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to
you." When you rightly prioritize the Master's needs, his mission, and his
self-imposed need to have harvest laborers, then you step into the abundance of
God. If you act in self-protection, you cannot be a good
servant.
When we step into the
dimension of the generosity of God, our self-protecting mindset is dismantled,
and we are able to live like a true servant, because you realize God's kingdom
is one of never-ending abundance.
In Jesus the Abundant
One.
Brown
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