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How Scarcity Overflows into Wealth

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… in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. 2 Corinthians 8:2

I wonder if you feel like your circumstances have left you with nothing to give. Maybe you feel depleted, barely able to hang on. Your scarcity may be financial, relational, or even emotional, but it really doesn’t matter. Your stores are empty. You don’t have what you need, never mind the ability to give to anyone else.

Can you relate, dear one? If so, perhaps that empty place is the perfect place for you to be.

Let’s see if you really pay attention to what you read. In our opening scripture, what did the Macedonian churches’ wealth of generosity flow from?

Yes. You read it right. Extreme poverty.

In the natural world, that sentence doesn’t even make sense. By definition, poverty represents lack. It means want or extreme need. Scarcity, shortage, deficit, and debt are all synonyms.

Beloved, extreme poverty means not having enough for yourself. So how can what you don’t have provide what somewhat else needs?

Yet that’s precisely how scripture describes these churches. Extreme poverty overflowed into wealth. Their own lack became generous provision for others. How?

But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Matthew 19:26

Our God of the impossible makes lack overflow into provision. It doesn’t make sense to the natural mind. It seems unbelievable. But that doesn’t make it any less true.

Take a moment to ponder Jesus’ words from 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.”

You and I need to understand this biblical truth, beloved. If we want to receive from God, He requires us to give.

If you need money, give to someone in need. If you need comfort, comfort someone else. If you need forgiveness, forgive. If you desperately need to feel love, be the one who gives it. And God promises that He will return what you give back to you. With good measure, pressed down and running over, He will put into your own lap the very thing you have given.

Because giving—particularly from lack—requires a little something from us. It requires faith. And faith moves God to pour out grace.

That, dear one, is how lack overflows into wealth. When we trust God by giving what we don’t have, the God of overflow fills the void to provide it.

Let’s look at a few scriptures relating God to overflow.

He struck the rock so that water gushed out and streams overflowed. Can he also give bread or provide meat for his people? Psalm 78:20

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Psalm 23:5

Beloved, God alone can make your cup overflow, even when enemies threaten to take everything. His presence made water flow from solid rock to provide for His thirsty people in the desert. He longs to show His overflow in your desert places. But He waits for you to exercise a little faith.

Jesus released God’s overflow when He fed five thousand men—plus women and children—with only five loaves and two fish. But do you know when that food multiplied, dear one? When the disciples trusted Jesus by giving the little they had in their hands away.

Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over. Matthew 14:19-20

Twelve disciples gave from their lack. They each went home with a basket of left overs—pressed down, shaken together and running over.

Oh beloved. Let’s not wait to give from our abundance. Giving from poverty releases God to reveal Himself.

 Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box, and he saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. And he said, “Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.” Luke 21:1-4

And she alone experienced God when He gave her more.

Is Love Worth the Pain it Brings?

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The faithful love of the LORD never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning. Lamentations 3:22-23

Love.

It moves us. Compels us.

Sometimes it breaks us.

Recently my heart broke under its weight as we said goodbye to our beloved Annie, our Australian Shepherd puppy-person that melted our hearts from the first day we met her.

Some of you may not understand such a strong attachment to a four-legged creature. But perhaps you’ve never opened your heart to receive the love of one.

You see, our Annie never held her love back like people do. She gave it. Freely.

She always greeted us with enthusiastic kisses—whether we’d been gone for 15 minutes or 15 days—and she loved snuggles more than anyone I know. Her tender heart often reflected our moods. She would share joys and bear burdens, lovingly coming near to lay with me and comfort me when she sensed my heart hurting.

Annie knew how to make a girl feel special. She followed me wherever I went in the house—even if only to run back upstairs to grab something I forgot. But Annie was unconcerned over the reason for going. She simply went. Because nothing gave her greater joy than to be in the presence of the one who loved and took care of her.

Oh, that we would love our God without restraint like Annie loved me!

Over these last ten years, she taught me so much about unconditional love. But recently, as cancer revealed itself in our family again—this time in our furry, precious loved one—a fresh awareness of the cross washed over me. While laying with Annie to comfort her when disease had rapidly taken her strength and she could no longer get up to follow me, an overwhelming desire to release her suffering gripped my heart.

And I realized. That’s precisely how God feels about our suffering. He aches. And He wants to remove everything that hinders our capacity to enjoy one another completely.

God wants to remove everything that hinders our capacity to enjoy one another completely. Click To Tweet

But being God, He’s able to do something about it. And He did. He sent His Son to bear our suffering, so that He could redeem it. And suffering itself became the catalyst for our redemption.

Christ’s love flowed red at Calvary, beloved.

Now the only thing that can keep us from the power of His love is our refusal to receive it. A guarded heart that won’t open to love will never experience its resurrection power.

And so the enemy of our souls keeps us fearing love.

In this fallen world we live in, we’re going to hurt, dear one. Man’s choice to separate from God brought pain—pain the enemy of our souls has convinced us we can escape if we avoid loving freely.

But you and I were created to love. Made in the image of the God of love, we can never experience the joy of abundant life without loving. Love brings life to dead places. It exhilarates. It heals. And yes, sometimes it hurts.

But the beauty of pure love reveals itself in its faithfulness. In love’s embrace, even the hurt will become joy again as love heals.

You and I don’t want to run from love, beloved. We want to run toward it. We want to dive headlong straight into the arms of its Source. So we can become it. And give it. Freely. Because only as we give it can we receive what it gives. Jesus said so 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.”

But loving takes faith, dear one. We’ve got to trust to love. We must love without fear.

God is love. Love is eternal. Love never fails. Nothing entrusted to love is ever lost, and nothing birthed out of love well ever die. But there are some places that love does not grow; love cannot flourish in the company of its rival, fear. Fear has an end—actually, fear is a dead end. Fear is an ungodly spirit that leads to torment. Fear advises from its seat in the shadow of doubt, while love draws its wisdom from the light of faith. If you heed the counsel of fear for too long, you will fail.

(Lisa Bevere, THE ONE THING I WOULD CHANGE IN MY MARRIAGE, Messenger International, http://messengerinternational.org/blog/lisa-devotional/one-thing-change-marriage/)

As I lay holding Annie, my heart in shattered pieces under the heavy weight of loss, I never regretted my decision to love her. My lips offered a sacrifice of praise to my God for the privilege of it. I thanked Him for the cuddles and kisses, the laughter, and the joy. And I know my heart—though broken—will keep beating. My Father’s love will heal and mend it, making it even stronger. Increasing its capacity, and allowing it to give even more.

Beloved, when we love, we bear our Father’s image.

Don’t hold back from love, dear one. Become it. Give it. Feel it.

And live reaping its resurrection power.