LIBERALITY
As a preacher’s kid (PK), my father expected me to meet a high standard. He encouraged me to put God and spiritual matters first in everything I thought and did in my life. Under his tutelage, I mastered the content of the Bible thoroughly. From the time I could first understand words and sentences, he told me Bible stories. He especially emphasized those concerning Jesus and His death and resurrection, so I would understand that Jesus had redeemed humankind from sin and death and gave us eternal life.
I remember when my father told me about the consequence of Adam and Eve’s eating the forbidden fruit: death. I asked why Adam and Eve didn’t die right after they ate the forbidden fruit. After all, didn’t God tell them that “in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die”? (Gen. 2:17).[1]
With a smile on his face he said, “Yes, you are right my son. They didn’t die on the day of their transgression, because someone died in their stead. Read Genesis 3:21: “Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them.” He continued, saying, “To cover their nakedness, God gave Adam and Eve coats made of skins which came from the skin of an animal who died. The animal was a lamb. In Revelation 13:8, it says, ‘the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.’”
“Who was the Lamb,” he asked me. But then he gave the answer immediately. He said, “In John 1:29, when John the Baptist saw Jesus approaching him, John said, ‘Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.’ So the Lamb mentioned in Revelation is a symbol of Jesus.”
Then he read John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
My prudent father closed our conversation with the conclusion that the main idea of this episode was that God the Father is a great lover and a great giver, and Jesus the Son is a great lover and a great giver too.
Together we read the last text In Ephesians 1:7: “In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.” My father said, “Because of Jesus’ redemption and LIBERALITY in giving and loving humankind, we are free people, free of penalties and punishments of eternal death. Jesus came to set us free and LIBERATED us from sins.”
Ellen White wrote, “The spirit of LIBERALITY is the spirit of heaven. This spirit finds its highest manifestation in Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. In our behalf the Father gave His only-begotten Son; and Christ, having given up all that He had, then gave Himself, that man might be saved. The cross of Calvary should appeal to the benevolence of every follower of the Saviour. The principle there illustrated is to give, give. ‘He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked.’—1 John 2:6.”[2]
I believe that there was great pleasure in the heart of Jesus when He gave His life to save the world and those dwelling in it. How can we not love Him and be willing to give LIBERALLY as a response? How can we not do what He asks of us? In Malachi 3:10 God asked us, “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house.” And in Proverbs 3:9, He says, “Honour the Lord with thy substance, and with the first fruits of all thine increase.”
Today I am reminded to give generously, abundantly, and LIBERALLY. How about you, my friends? Let us emulate Jesus’ life and put into practice His unselfishness.
Hiskia Missah
Editor
[1] All Bible texts are taken from the King James Version.
[2] Ellen G. White, The Acts of the Apostles (Boise, Idaho: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1911), p. 339 (emphasis supplied).
