In all these things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”    Acts 20:35 ESV

I want to talk about giving and receiving. We will all be doing a lot of both in the next few weeks. Before going any further, I want to address this passage from an apologetics point of view. If you search for where Jesus said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” you won’t find it. Some critics like to say Paul misspoke here, but we must remember Paul met with Jesus Himself on the road to Damascus where he was transformed.

We know that not everything Jesus said or did was recorded in the gospels. So, it is possible that Jesus had said this, but it simply wasn’t written down. It’s also possible that Jesus spoke this directly to Paul or that this was a proverb Jesus had used that had been spoken of but never written in the gospels.

Jesus, did however, say in Luke 6:38, “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.”

Jesus certainly promoted giving. He gave His own life to save us from sin and an eternity in a fiery hell. He gave the best gift anyone could ever give. We can’t outgive Jesus.

We know Jesus did not want to endure the suffering on the cross for He asked God, if possible, to remove this from Him in Matthew 26:39. He ended by saying, “Not my will, but thine be done.” We also are to do God’s will.  We know we are to give of our money and our time. We are to be a help to others whenever possible.

This is the time of year where many of us have literally given until we have nothing left to give. We have given our time to go to various functions. We have given our money to prepare food for these events and to buy gifts. And don’t even get me started on the con artists and scammers out there trying to get money from us any way they can.

In a time where we are hyper focused on giving and receiving, we must consider the most important gift any of us could ever receive. This is the gift of salvation given freely to us by God through His Son Jesus Christ (John 3:16). Our sin leads to death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:23).

The first and most important thing we must do is receive this gift from God. We are told in James 4:8 if we draw near to God, He will draw near to us. We must be called to salvation. We can come as we are, but God will never force this free gift on us, we must be willing to accept it.

This is also the best gift we can ever give. Once we have received this gift, we will want to give. We will want to share our salvation with others. We will want to share all the goodness and mercy we have received from Him.

At a time of year when you may feel physically, mentally and financially exhausted turn to God. If you have not drawn near to Him, been called to salvation and accepted His precious gift, please do so. None of us know how much more time we have.

If you have been saved, then you will want to give. When we give God blesses us.

If you are feeling give out, turn to Jesus and He will give you rest (Matthew 11:28). Receive Jesus into your heart and give yourself over to Him today.

Have a great day!