Generous Life Devotional - Feb 12, 2014


Generosity reveals what you value

Matthew 6:21

21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

What do you treasure? It’s important that we ask ourselves this question because it aids our decisions or discernment of how we want to live. For the person who treasures their career most of all, they will decide to make sacrifices in other parts of their life, perhaps in relation to relationships outside of work. For the person who treasures money or possessions, they might decide to sacrifice having a family, focusing on personal investment. For the person who treasures God’s ways, you will see them willingly sacrifice worldly comforts like careers or pay raises as they discern what path God has for them in their life.

When Jesus talked about this in Matthew Chapter 6, he told us that we could build up treasure on earth, where thieves could take it and where moths and rust could destroy it, or we could build up treasure in heaven, where it would be eternally safe. And then he said this, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

So what’s this have to do with generosity? Consider: If you highly treasure your money or possessions you are going to find it very hard to part with them in order to be generous to someone else. On the other hand, if you treasure God and the rewards He’s promised in heaven above your earthly treasures, then you are going to realize it is totally worth it to give up your earthly treasure to gain heavenly treasure.

For us to be generous, we have to know what is valuable to us – and why. If you can’t understand why you should want to be generous with others, it means that at some level you don’t realize how much God has in store for you in heaven.

So, contemplate:

  • God gave you His Son.
  • Jesus gave you His life and His righteousness.
  • Because of this, you have eternal blessing to look forward to.

Once that has taken root in your heart, being generous is all you’ll want to be.

Today’s Generosity Challenge:

Reflect on the last 30 days. What have you discovered about you own heart though this journey? Write down what you have seen about yourself here at http://GenerousLife.net/Day31.

For more from Generous Life, visit generouslife.net, and listen to Generous Life Radio at OnePlace.com!

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Christianity / Devotionals / Generous Life / Generous Life Devotional - Feb 12, 2014