35 Days of Generosity – Week 1 Devotionals – Prioritize the Gospel

1.1: The Morning I Learned What True Generosity Means

By Roger Bayramian
Controller

What was your earliest memory of receiving an act of kindness? One of my first jobs as a teenager was delivering newspapers around my neighborhood. I would wake up early in the morning to fold the newspapers and then head out on my bike to distribute them. My favorite time of year was during Christmas time, when the morning darkness was filled with colorful lights. I recall coming upon one of the homes and noticing something on the porch. There was a small envelope with my name on it, and inside was a generous tip. The small act of generosity from a kind customer made me feel seen and appreciated.

Believers in Christ have received an even greater kindness. Through the good news of Jesus Christ, we experience God’s generosity, grace, and mercy. The gospel is the declaration of the work that Jesus has accomplished in His life and death to save sinners. Jesus lived the perfect life we could not. He fulfilled God’s law and died as a substitute to pay the penalty for our sins. We read in Ephesians 1:7,

In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.

The Apostle Paul declares that we are recipients of God’s forgiveness, the riches of God’s grace. Because of Christ, we are forgiven, welcomed into God’s family, and given spiritual and physical blessings as we wait for an eternal inheritance. All of this comes to us as a gift—we did nothing to earn or deserve God’s grace. What a generous God!

How can we respond to such a generous God? Generosity is a response of a heart that is filled with gratitude for all God has done for believers in Christ. This response is evident in our willingness to share our time, talent, and resources with others, all to the glory of God.

1.2 : Your Generosity Tells a Greater Story

By Cyril Florita
Web Developer

People nowadays feel driven to “give it back to the community.” They believe they owe it to others to share their prosperity. And so they generously invest their time, wealth, skills, or influence to improve the lives of people in their community.

What about you? What drives your generosity?

Let me submit to you that generosity starts with God. He sent His own Son—the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ—to save us from sin’s penalty. He calls us to repent and believe in His Son, granting us forgiveness and reconciliation to Him, our Father.

God’s Son lived the perfect life required of us, but we could not. He died the death on the cross we deserved, though He did not. He then rose from the dead, declaring victory over sin and death, giving us the greatest of hope in the gospel—the hope of glory and eternal life with Him.

Simply put, generosity is a response to the gospel—it prompts us to be generous, just as God is.

That’s why, at Children’s Hunger Fund, we declare the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as our priority. It’s the only source of true hope, the ultimate remedy for mankind’s suffering, and the power of God to those who are being saved. We therefore unite our God-given gifts and resources for the proclamation of the gospel.

Has God produced an immense gratitude in your heart, causing you to be gospel-driven in your generosity towards others? Pray with me that God’s word through Paul would minister to your heart as you consider how God might use your generosity.

And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. (2 Corinthians 9:8)

1.3: Freed to be Generous

By Jim Word
Development Officer

I had never met Andy* before that Sunday, yet I had heard about him and prayed for him for almost four years.

Andy looked every bit the part of a man who had spent three and a half years in a maximum-security prison. He appeared haggardly. His clothes were tired and outdated. He had, at best, a dozen teeth in his mouth, all of which were chipped or broken. I guess that is what thirteen fights in prison will get you.

Andy had been released on Thursday by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, but on Sunday he made evident, sometime during his incarceration, Jesus had set him free.

Andy’s offering envelope didn’t contain a significant amount of money on the inside, but the note he scribbled on the outside was golden. The front simply read,

$7 cash. Just out of prison. Broke. More next week.

This is not the first time we see generosity spring free because of forgiveness. The Bible and life are full of examples. Whether it is Zacchaeus paying back four times what he had taken, Barnabas selling land and giving the proceeds to the church, or an ex drug dealer from Texas giving every dollar he has, we witness a simple and sure truth Jesus explains while a “sinful woman” washes his feet with expensive perfume and her tears:

Therefore I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven; that’s why she loved much. But the one who is forgiven little, loves little. (Luke 7:47)

Andy “loved much” that day. Oh  yeah, and the back of the envelope?

Don’t worry. I have all I need. Jesus Christ. He rode with me in prison and I’m riding with him to heaven. God bless you and your church.

Thank you, Andy.  He just did.

*Andy’s name has been changed for privacy.

1.4: Considering the Stars

By Lisa LaGeorge
CHF Academy

Have you ever tried to count the stars?  A recent evening found me sitting outside considering the heavens. How many stars are really up there?  Some astronomers have estimated that the Milky Way contains more than 100 billion stars.  But why are there so many?  What is their purpose?

Those stars are simply a reminder of the generosity of the One who created them. God didn’t just make one or two stars; He made more than we can even count. When Moses asked to see God, to understand Him more, this is how God described Himself:

The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love. . . (Exodus 34:6-7)

The generosity that we see in nature is just a small example of God’s abundant, overflowing grace and mercy that are central to His character.

While the stars are amazing, the depth of God’s generosity is most clearly shown in the gift of His Son:

God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son that whoever would believe in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)

God’s overflowing, lovingkindness equips His people to also be generous in our love to those around us. His grace propels us to care for those who have both physical and spiritual needs. Our generosity is a signpost to the character of our generous, gracious, merciful God.

Perhaps the next time you look at the sky, try to count the stars. Then you can rejoice with the psalmist in the generosity that flows from God to and through you!

You have multiplied, O Lord my God,
your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us;
none can compare with you!
I will proclaim and tell of them,
yet they are more than can be told. (Psalm 40:5)