In Giving, We Receive

"This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you."

John 15:12 (NKJV)

Saint Francis of Assisi prayed a prayer that has survived eight centuries because it contains a secret that the human soul recognises as profoundly true: 'It is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.'

This is entirely upside down by the world's standards. The world says: protect yourself, secure yourself, get what you can before someone else does. Look out for number one. Vulnerability is weakness. Giving is foolish unless there's a return.

But Jesus says something completely different. He tells His disciples: love one another as I have loved you. And the love of Jesus is the most giving, most self-emptying, most extravagant thing the universe has ever witnessed. He did not hold back. He gave everything, His time, His strength, His life.

And the paradox, which every genuinely generous person discovers, is that this kind of giving does not leave you empty. It fills you. There is a joy in giving that cannot be manufactured any other way. There is a satisfaction in serving that no amount of being served can replicate.

I've been a pastor long enough to observe this clearly: the people who are genuinely the most joyful are rarely the ones who have received the most. They are the ones who have given the most. The people with the richest inner lives are almost always the ones who have poured themselves out for others.

The opposite of love isn't hate. It's selfishness. And selfishness, for all its self-protective energy, produces an extraordinarily small and lonely life.

Who in your life needs you to show up for them today, not because it's convenient, not because there's a return, but because Christ loved you first and calls you to love in kind?

The Holy Spirit is able to free you from selfishness and fill you with the love of Christ. Ask Him to do that today. And then go and give it away.

Prayer: Lord, free me from the smallness of a self-centred life. Fill me with Your love, not a sentimental feeling, but the active, self-giving love that marked the life of Jesus. Help me to give today, expecting nothing in return, trusting that in giving I truly receive. Amen.

Pastor Ras
All Nations Community Church

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