Generous With Our Love
It’s so nice to have Derek Wilson with us today, and he's going to keep teaching us on generosity. Thanks, Derek.
Thanks, Luke. I want to move on today and talk about love—for us to be generous with our love. In 1 John 4:19, he wrote: We love because God first loved us.
Understanding God's Love
In a sense, that's how we operate. We love God because we found that God loves us. And it's very important that we understand that our love is always responsive to the love that God showers on us day by day.
So I want to suggest that it's not what we've done, but what Christ has done for us that causes this love to grow in our lives. It's not our love for God that makes us humble. It's knowing that God loves us in spite of all the horrible things we've done—that He simply loves us just as we are. And that's a real message for us to hold on to.
Love Rooted in Grace
There's a Dennis the Menace cartoon that shows Dennis and Joey leaving the Wilsons' front porch, each with a handful of cookies. Joey has this surprised look on his face, and Dennis says, "Mrs. Wilson gives us cookies not because we're nice, but because she's nice."
And I want to suggest that we love because God loves us. God is generosity itself! Everything we do should be motivated by our love for God when we understand His love for us.
Giving Love Away
And just to kind of cement this, there's a story told about the great Broadway musical star Mary Martin, who was to go on stage in South Pacific. A note was handed to her from Oscar Hammerstein, who was at that moment on his deathbed.
The note simply said this:
Dear Mary,
A bell's not a bell till you ring it.
A love song's not a song till you sing it.
Love in your heart is not put there to stay.
Love isn't love till you give it away.
After her performance that night, many people rushed backstage crying, “Mary, what happened to you out there tonight? We never saw anything like that performance before.” Blinking back the tears, Mary read the note from Hammerstein and then she said, “Tonight I gave my love away.”
What a blessing! And let me ask the question just to close: Do we give our love away? Do you and I give our love away?
Something to think about for today.
