Generosity

A Christian who is walking in the Spirit of Christ is generous.  The Spirit of Christ in every believer is a river of generous living water.  A Christian does not have to create or sustain this river of generosity.  The Christian must believe Jesus within is the source of this river and simply release the river of generosity.

Human generosity exists because Jesus exists.  Jesus and generosity are one and the same.  The Christian and generosity should also be one and the same.

Generosity and sin do not mix.  They are opposites.  Sin is afraid to be generous.  Sin is concerned with acumulating and taking.  Generosity is open and unafraid.  Generosity always believes the source named Jesus will never run out of resources.

All of the metaphors Jesus used to describe the kind of human life and behavior the Father desires are metaphors of generosity.  Light is generous.  Salt is generous. Seeds are generous.  Sheep are generous.  Even children are happilly generous when deeply loved.

If we want to witness to others about who Jesus is, we would do well to begin with acts of generosity and then speak generous words.

“Preach the Gospel always and when necessary use words.”  These words attributed to Francis of Assisi are a good place for generous Christians to start. Perhaps we can also say “Be continuouly generous. When the right moment comes explain with words that Jesus is the source of your generosity.”

Walk in the Spirit and you will walk in generosity.  Sooner or later someone will want to know where your generosity comes from.

Bud McCord

Abide International

The Perfecting of Love

Imagine a world where every person believed that they exist to love.  Imagine every person in that world spending each day loving others and allowing God to perfect the quality of their daily love.  As hard as this kind of world is to imagine, the church of Jesus Christ is supposed to be the beginning of this kind of  world.

Jesus died to forgive us for every thought and action that was not rooted in love for God and for our neighbor.  Having once and for all forgiven us by His death on Calvary, Jesus then came with the Father and the Spirit to make a home in each believer.  From this new home in us and with us the love of God is being perfected in us and through us one day at a time.

The world of perfected love is not an impossible dream.  This world of perfect love is already here in every one who has received Jesus and is cooperating with Jesus one day at a time.

As we all awaken each day in this world where it seems love is dying, we can say to ourselves “The love of God in Christ lives in me so I can love today. God in Christ by the Spirit will perfect my love today.”

Have no fear.  Love never fails.  Love has already been perfected in Jesus and the new world where love wins is already here.

" No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.

Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. We love Him because He first loved us."  I John 4:12-19

Bud McCord

Abide International

Jesus. The Cure for Paralysis

“There is nothing that the presence of Jesus cannot cure.” Mike Wells

There are many types of paralysis.  Physical paralysis is the most obvious kind, but there are many forms of paralysis that limit our movement with God.

In Luke chapter 5: 17-26, concerned friends bring their paralysed friend to Jesus for healing.  Ripping off the tiles of the roof of the house where Jesus was curing people, these men literally dropped their motionless friend into the presence of Jesus.

The story ends with these words from Jesus:  “ ’I tell you’ he said to the man who was paralysed, ‘get up, pick up your bed and go home!’  Instantly the man sprang to his feet before their eyes, picked up the bedding on which he used to lie, and went off home praising God.”

In the same chapter in Luke, verses 27-28,  Jesus heals Levi from an entirely different kind of paralysis.  This is the same Levi who became one of Jesus disciples.

“Later on, Jesus went out and looked straight at a tax-collector called Levi, as he sat at his office.  ‘Follow me,’ he said to him.  And he got to his feet at once, left everything behind and followed him.”

Levi was just as paralyzed as the other man who was healed by Jesus. Both needed to get to their feet as Jesus spoke and head home praising God.  Both of them needed to be made able to leave behind the paralysis of their past and folllow Jesus.

All of us are paralysed by something that holds in one limited reality.  When our friends take us to the presence of Jesus or when Jesus comes to where we are paralysed, everything will change when we hear Him say “Get up! Follow Me!”

“It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but those who are ill.  I have not come to invite the ‘righteous’ but the ‘sinners’---to change their ways.”  Luke 5:32 Phillips

Bud McCord

Abide International

God Speaks With His Hand

“For the Lord spoke thus to me with a strong hand...”

Isaiah 8:11

How does God speak with His strong hand?   The same way a parent speaks to a child with his or her strong hand.  The parent takes hold of the child’s circumstances with a strong hand until the child will  finally be still and listen.

When God speaks to us by taking hold of us and our circumstances it is unmistakeable.  When God speaks with a strong hand, we find ourselves literally in the grip of circumstances we are powerless to overcome.  We can fight, run, resist and complain but our circumstances hold us.  We cannot move away. We are held too firmly by an unseen hand.

By his strong hand God gets our attention.  We have come to the end of ourselves and we know it.   Finally we grow still and begin to  understand that we are not God,  God’s strong hand brings tears of repentance to our eyes. The tears are the stress of our resistance finally leaving us.

By holding us in the grip of our circumstances God educates us.   Once we have felt the grip of God orchestarated circumstances we are much easier to educate. We learn to be still before God.

When God’s hand has made its point,  we know God is greater than our circumstances. We know we are really in the grip of the hand of His will and voice.

Being stil and knowing He is God is such a relief!

Bud McCord

Abide International