Tom writes:

Like the football coach who calls you over to him when you missed the goal, Paul keeps on preaching about giving. You thought the general feedback was enough but no, Paul wants to “get into it some more” with a further head to head. He’s an insatiable preacher and don’t you love him for it? He keeps on pushing us towards the super-generous God. Paul is determined you see the One who is able to make all grace abound to you so that in all things at all times you will abound in indescribable, surpassing riches of grace. Your cheerful generosity unplugs the bung, unclogs the pipe of God’s favour on you. If we give a lot to God we get abundantly more from him. For much of my life I’ve wanted to believe that truth with a pinch of salt. I’ve wanted to signal my theological virtue by quickly adding “of course this doesn’t mean we should believe the ‘prosperity gospel’”. I’ve been like the striker being told he can score huge numbers of goals who nods in agreement while listing all the reasons that won’t be true. For once I’m trying just to receive the word as it is. To soak up the deep affection God has for me. To embrace the lavish generosity of his goodness and the abundant capability of his provision. I’m not doing this so that I can become filthy rich. I’m not doing this so that I get more for me. But I’ve come to realise that my hesitation to believe God’s goodness has actually caused me to miss many goals. And the whole team benefits when people score goals.

Our God has already gone far beyond what is reasonable in his kindness towards us. Our God is unchanging in his affections and abounding in his kindness. Why can’t we just lean on that for a little bit? Paul leant on that a whole lot. Without a caveat or a clarifying comment Paul heaps hyperbole on hyperbole about how much God wants to give us. As we choose to be like our generous God he opens wider the door of his generosity to us. A virtuous circle begins. We give and he gives. We rejoice in giving to him and he rejoices in giving to us. It sounds too good to be true and yet saint after saint has sworn it to be true. And, if I’m honest, I think I’d rather get slightly burned in trying it out than stay nice and safe and score no goals. Our coach is calling us into more. Why don’t we trust him and become more generous than we dare? Let’s become staggeringly generous, just like our God was in Jesus.

Question for reflection

What would it look like for God to make us abound in the indescribable, unsurpassing riches of his grace?

2 Corinthians 9 - Wednesday 19th June