Trusting God’s Abundance

Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
Luke 6:38 (NIV)

Jesus is teaching struggling, marginalized, disenfranchised people to live in spite of their cultural seasonal predicaments, to live generously with their lives, their resources, and their ministry to each other because to Christ, generosity is a core principle.

The Bible in general and Jesus specifically feel no need to hesitate in teaching, admonishing, and encouraging the soul that is saved to live generously, and giving is connected to spiritual maturation. God is a giver, and God expects us in turn to be givers. He sees it as a spiritual matter. He grows us closer to Him through it. He makes us accountable to each other through it. He connects it to our worship.

Give and it will be given to us. This is God’s promise. We are to live generously because when we do, there is spiritual reciprocity attached to it.

God’s measure starts with more than flow; it starts with overflow. He gives back to you what He presses down, shakes together, and causes to run over. He is the God of exceedingly and abundantly.

What does God use to measure how He interacts with us? He doesn’t use your arm because it’s too short. He uses His arm that stretches from eternity to eternity. When God measures out how He will reciprocate to your generosity, it is so much more than you expect that you come to understand what Malachi meant when he said it is synonymous with the windows of heaven being opened and blessings being poured out.

Here’s what God is saying. Good measure means God will measure it out. Live generously and trust that He will reciprocate with good measure.