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The Generous Nature of God By Pastor Tunde Bakare
Text: Psalm 145: 14-26, Psalm 146.
Introduction.
The two Psalms above were written to extol and praise God of Zion, and capture all the nuances of the entire Search The Scripture series on Living in Zion.
Message Focus.
When enumerating the character of God we do not often come up with giving as being one of them. We are more familiar with God being loving, forgiving, just, gracious, merciful, righteous …
Everything we know about God reveals His LAVISH DIVINE GENEROSITY, (LDG).
Examples of God’s giving surround us all.
Our home, families, life, works and many more all reveal the nature of an all giving God.
From the beginning when God anticipated the needs of mankind He commanded the waters to abound with abundance of living creatures and also beasts in the forest, Genesis 1: 20-21, Psalm 50:7-12.
In line with the abundance of God and His nature as a generous giver Jesus the Lord taught His disciples in Matthew 7:7-11.
What verses 7 and 8 of this passage imply is that if all of the human beings needs are exponentially raised to infinity they cannot dent God’s account.
Everyone who asks receives, everyone who seeks finds and to everyone who knocks the door shall be opened.
Two attributes describe God in the Bible to prove His generosity.
God is described as the Creator and as the Redeemer.
The two descriptions point out clearly that God is the one who gives us both the material and the spiritual life.
The two reveal the essence of God and through out the Bible God is worshiped in both roles as the Creator and as the Redeemer.
In Revelation 4:11 God is worshiped as the Creator and in Revelation 5:9 God is worshiped as our Redeemer who gives us spiritual life.
The Bible celebrates God’s sovereignty of Creation and Redemption.
You need spiritual capacity to understand how to relate with God and not be a religious hypocrite.
It may sound surprising that the Bible does not suggest that His spiritual gifts are more important than His material gifts and vice versa.
Both the spiritual and material gifts are appreciated with equal enthusiasm.
Some may like to dispute this fact and argue that wisdom (Spiritual) is better than gold (Material).
Spiritual and Material Gifts Compared.
Reading Job 28:12-19, Proverbs 3: 13-18 and Proverbs 8: 11-21 one can easily conclude that spiritual life given to us by God is by far superior to the material life given to you by the same God.
The following three points will change such conclusion and make you appreciate that both the spiritual and material with equal enthusiasm.
It is God, the same God who gave both the spiritual and material life therefore nothing given by God is inferior.
Sometimes before you can access the spiritual you have to use the material, Proverbs 3: 9-10 and Proverbs 3:13-14.
If you have not learned to honour God with your substance, and the first fruit of all your increase, to have wisdom will be a tall order.
For example the alms giving of Cornelius became his access point to salvation and redemption, Acts 10:2.
This example should however not be taken out of context. Please note that salvation and gift of God are not for sale, 2 Kings 5: 20-27, Acts 8:14-24.
Every spiritual gift becomes redundant without material gift, Ecclesiastes 9:11-16.
Observe that Psalm 19, verses 1-6 celebrate God’s creation, whilst verses 7-14 speak about the spiritual.
Colossians 1:14-20 highlight the order of Creation and how He redeemed us through His blood.
The question was asked: which is more important, the Cross of Jesus or His manifestation when the Word became flesh? If the Word did not become flesh who will go to the cross?
The two parameters that can be used to measure the generous nature of God and know how awesome He is are Creation and Redemption.
Every Word used in terms of Redemption such as Salvation, Justification etc are gifts given to us. We did nothing to earn them.
There is a risk involved in giving which is the risk of damage of what was given, and God took the first risk.
When what He gave was damaged by man He brought Redemption.
Genesis 1:29 was given as the take home Scripture.
Note: What you do with that Seed given to you by God determines whether you exercise dominion or not on the face of the Earth.