Luke 6:37-38 - Giving God's Love

Jesus concludes this passage on our attitude toward people with a powerful principle of Scripture that ties all the above verse together. He began by saying that we should love our enemies, do good to them, to bless them, to pray for them, and don’t fight back when they physically attack us. Then in verse 37, Jesus tells us to forgive others if we want to be forgiven. Next, in verse 38, Jesus ties forgiveness to the act of giving. Did you ever notice that the word “give” is in the word “forgive”.   It appears to me that this verse on giving is in context with being kind, good, being generous to our enemies, and responding with good to those who are doing hurtful things to us. I believe that Jesus is teaching us here that one of the greatest gifts that we can give to God and others is the gift of ourselves. Actually, God doesn’t need or want our money, He wants us. And the truth is that most people don’t really care about our money or material gifts we give them, if we don’t first show them that we truly care about them.   Recently we have heard how some people are being told not to go to family gatherings at Thanksgiving and Christmas if your family members voted differently than the way they did. So, this holiday season if a family member doesn’t show up for your traditional time together how should you respond? Please, don’t just write them off and say something like, “Well, it’s their loss”. Our response should be to forgive them and give them a gift such as a thoughtful and kind card with a generous gift card to a restaurant in it. In this way you are giving them a gift of yourself as you share a gift of your time, a gift of your mind, and most importantly, a gift of God’s love.   When you read 1 Corinthians 13, you find that expressing God’s love is not something you feel but something you do. When someone mistreats me, my natural response is to avoid them or maybe get even with them in some way. But if instead, I reach up into God’s reservoir of love, which is endless, and take a handful of it and give it to the people who have hurt or offended me, I’m actually giving them the gift of God.   This is the way they see God in us. God is love and He proved His love to us by giving. John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son…”. Romans 5:8, “But God showed His love to us, in that while we still sinners, Christ died for us”. We prove our love, and demonstrate the love of God to others when we forgive them and respond in kindness to their meanness!   Remember in Acts 6:15, when Stephen was being falsely accused before the council, they saw his face as the face of an angel. Not the face of an angry man fighting back at them. And in Acts 7:59, Stephen’s final words as they were stoning him to death were, “Father, lay not this sin to their charge”. Stephen gave them the great act of God’s love as he gave them his life and his prayers. Oh, did you notice a man name Saul was standing there watching, and I’m convinced because of this act of Stephen’s love, Saul later responds to the Gospel and becomes the Apostle Paul who turns the world upside down for Christ and gives us thirteen epistles in the New Testament.   Jesus also gave us an example, as He was being taken to Calvary, He prayed, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do”. Both Jesus and Stephen had their eyes on the eternal reward of giving God’s love to a lost world! I imagine Stephen received a large portion of Paul’s reward as hundreds of thousands are in heaven because of his gift of love. Hebrews 12:2 tells us that “Jesus, Who for the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross.”   Today, in response to every evil act against us, we can give God’s love, and we are promised that we will experience the everlasting joy of a great eternal reward!   God bless!