It is Better to Receive than Give!

A stunning truth about our Father that is more and more apparent to me these days is His love of giving gifts to His children. All of His gifts are amazing because He is God, but maybe the most incredible reality is that He doesn’t want or expect anything back! And he doesn’t want our response to His gifts to be some sort of payback. Contrary to what you might have heard in church and to what I might have preached in past sermons, it is not; “He has done so much for me I must give my life for Him.” That is a faulty premise, that we are in a transactional relationship with the Father. He does for us we do for Him, and eventually after a white knuckled semi miserable, fairly joyless life we get to go to Heaven. Does that sound like good news or an attractive message to a lost and dying world? Of course not, but sadly it is the case for many who claim Christ as their own.

What God wants us to do with His gifts, and they are many, and some are uniquely special to us, the response that delights the Father is that we not look to repay Him but rather enjoy the gifts! The radical truth is our desire to repay, as moral and righteous as it may look (see the Pharisees), stems from a wrong belief that there is something we must contribute to this relationship other than our sin, which we have wanted since the Garden.

The good news, no the great life giving joyful news is all the Father desires for us is to enjoy the gifts He has given us. He watches us always with the smile of a happy Father delighting in watching His children open and play with their gifts on Christmas morning. It may be better to give than receive when it comes to our relationship with others but when it comes to our Father all we do is receive and receive and receive, praise God

So my fellow broken travelers, enjoy and rest in the amazing gifts your Father has and will continue to delight to give to you!

#amazinggrace

Tom Crouse