One, Two

Psalm 145:¹⁶ “Generous to a fault, you lavish your favour on all creatures.” (MSG)

Why does God make more promises about being generous than about every other thing? The first reason is God is generous and He wants us to become like Him. The second reason is that God rewards us for learning to be like Him. It is just like when your child learns something important to you, a value or a virtue, you reward him or her. Over the next few days, we will look at nine different rewards that God promises us if we learn to be generous. There are more and I challenge you to search them out in God’s Word.

So, nine different rewards that God promises to give us if we live a generous life. And I am going to show you all of them in the Bible, so you see that we are not just picking them from thin air or making them up. Are you ready?

The first of nine rewards: God Promises Good Things Will Happen To You. God promises good things to you if you are generous. Psalm 112:⁵ “Good will come to those who are generous…” (NIV, emphasis added). So, continue to be generous and good will come to you. Proverbs 22:⁹ “Generous people will be blessed…” (NCV, emphasis added). So, if you are generous God promises that good things will happen to you.

The second of nine rewards: God Promises Your Children Will Be Blessed. Your generosity affects the next generation. You may have heard this before, but it is the Word of God, and we need to bring it to the surface again. God promises that if you are generous, your children will be blessed. Psalm 37:²⁶ “They are always gracious and generous. Their children, seed, descendants are blessed.” (NIV, KJV, & NKJV, emphasis added). There are certain blessings that you are enjoying, for instance, that is because of the generosity of your parents. There are things that your children will enjoy because of your generosity.

However, there are also things that you are not enjoying today because your parents were not generous. But you can change that by becoming generous so that the next generation will enjoy a bounty that they did not work for. And they will say it is because our parents were generous. The promise of God to you is that if you are generous your children will be blessed. These are words to live by. These are reasons to do the things we do. We are not just beating about the bush. These are anchors that hold our souls together.

Prayer: Father, please help my heart to be generous and kind, in Jesus Name. Amen!