A Life Beyond Amazing by David Jeremiah

Author:David Jeremiah
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2017-09-03T16:00:00+00:00

WHAT IS GENEROSITY?

Generosity is not about what’s in your bank account—it’s about what’s in your heart. The word generosity is not found on our list of nine decisions that describe a life beyond amazing (Gal. 5:22–23). But the concept is there, hiding in the word goodness. Goodness is often misunderstood as the absence of evil. But in the Bible, goodness is not an absence of anything. It is the presence of something good.

We know that through the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. It is also true that through the overflow of the heart, we will act in one way or another. And if goodness is present in our hearts, that goodness will manifest itself in a generous spirit, in the words we say, and in the way we treat others.

The generous person gives others the benefit of the doubt and treats others with respect. She isn’t worried about what the act of giving may cost in terms of time or effort. She doesn’t wait to be asked and doesn’t expect anything in return.

Most of us equate generosity with financial giving because that’s what we hear about, that’s what catches our attention. But generosity has a much fuller definition than that.

Respect, courtesy, forbearance, patience—all of these are expressions of a generous spirit. Each day you’re given opportunities to exercise generosity of spirit: to respond to impatience with patience, to reply to a hurried or thoughtless comment with an expression of understanding or empathy, to overlook what you don’t like in someone so you can seek and find what you do like.

This doesn’t mean you tolerate everything that comes your way; it means you seek to understand first and react later. And the first part of understanding is remembering that we’re all human and we’re all in this together. Open your heart to generosity, and you’ll be amazed at how God fills it.

For most of us, generosity doesn’t come naturally. As children, we’re fiercely protective of our toys. As teenagers we’re more interested in fairness than benevolence. As adults, we’re often so weighed down with financial worry we can find it difficult to be openhanded with what we have. But like every virtue in this book, generosity is one we can decide to cultivate, and we can depend on God to help us.

The apostle James said, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning” (James 1:17).

Our God is a generous God. Since we are made in His image, we can take comfort in knowing that generosity is within our reach. And “if ours is a world stamped from beginning to end by divine generosity, then it stands to reason that we ought to ‘risk’ a generosity of spirit commensurate to that reality!”5

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