5-7-23 Willisburg Bulletin
Walking Worthy
The focus of Ephesians is all about the Christian’s walk. There are three ways listed to walk worthy of being a Christian; including with humility, with patience/tolerance in love -> generosity, and preserving the unity of the Spirit with peace. We will discuss the second one this week.
Generosity
When you think of generosity, probably the first thing that comes to mind is a gift. What better gift were we give as Christians than the grace of God. We are richly blessed by God in order to generously give to others. In 2 Corinthians 9:7, it is talking about giving money, but when it boils down money is currency, which in turn is power in the world. In a spiritually sense, God’s grace is our currency and power. With the gospel, which is God (John 1:1-3) we have the power to save (Romans 1:16). Think about how you give to others. I would vouch to say none of us give as we ought in regards to our everyday lives. We might give to God on Sundays, but do you give to others? The other half of the generous part in the verse addresses how, with patience and tolerance. This involves us accepting and including all, even the people we think are annoying, and the people that are just different than you.
Giving to Others
Take a look at 2 Corinthians 8. Here we see the characteristics of generosity: vs 1 – make known God’s grace, vs 2 – wealth of liberalities overflow & joy is in abundance, vs 3 – willing to give beyond your ability by the filling up of ourselves with God’s grace (Malachi 3:10; 2 Corinthians 9:8), vs 4 – imploring ministry with urgency, vs 5 – first give to God & 2nd to others, vs 6 – intended & goes through successfully in giving, vs 7 – companionly abounding in faith, speech, knowledge, diligence, and in love. Can you read these verses and say that you do these on a regular basis? God has abundantly provided for us all we need & most the time we are too stingy to share. We need to learn to notice more, encourage more, & invest in others more. If you want to draw closer to God, He asks us to share, which means we must open our heart by reaching out of our comfort zone to connect with people. This involves us being more generous with our thank you’s & being willing to say things we mean & not take for granted that we think they already know. Let people know you care about them. Ask others to share in your “job” as a Christian because we’re working as a team. As we share, we grow closer to God & in turn to each other.