Better to Give than to Receive
I was listening to some music from my teenage years, and the following line from a song came up – “the good book says it’s better to give than to receive.” I was thinking I’d quickly find this in the Sermon on the Mount. It’s not there! The saying is actually found in Acts 20:35, and is attributed to Jesus. The following are some musings I had as I thought about this saying.
My first thought is how this counter to everything the world tells us about giving and receiving. We are so attuned to if there’s a blessing, receiving the blessing is the way to go. But Jesus said there is more blessing in giving. In my musings, I was tying this idea to love. In the world’s view, when we think of love, we think of good feelings we get, particularly when we’re around someone. I used to think that true love would be to meet someone who always made you feel good when you were with them. That’s the type of advice I would have given to someone looking for someone to marry. (If anyone were to ask me for that type of advice, which no one did.) As I’ve gotten older, and I hope wiser, if I were to be asked for who to look for to marry, or what to look for in someone to marry, now I would say something like “find someone who you can give your whole self to. Someone you feel comfortable giving yourself to. Someone you feel OK being vulnerable in front of them.” Because as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized love is not something that comes from receiving, it comes from giving.
Look at the famous love passage in 1 Corinthians 13. Look at those characteristics of love. It is not what you receive, but it is how you treat others. You are kind - to others. You are patient - with others. You’re not envious - of others. You’re not rude - to others. Love is not self-seeking. Love bears all things. Hopes all things. Endures all things. John says in 1 John 3:18 not to love in word or speech, but in action and truth – in what it is we do to others.
This is how God is. When Jesus says it is more blessed to give than receive, one thing he is saying is that God gives more than he receives. We all know this intellectually, and several times we experience this. We know we cannot out-give God. Sometimes this causes us frustration, or we feel it’s even futile to even try to give anything to God. Because what can we give to God? Micah asks the same questions in Micah 6:7 - "Would the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil?" When we feel this way, I think what we’re really asking is – what can God receive from us that would benefit him, or make him happy? And if that is what we’re thinking, we’ve swapped the saying of Jesus, and we’re reverting to our worldly views. Jesus says it is more blessed to give. The world says (and we fall in line with this ever so easily and frequently) it is more blessed to receive. And when we’re wondering what can God RECEIVE from us to be blessed by us, we’ve swapped the emphasis. God is not interested in receiving anything from us – he’s interested in our participation of his giving activities. That is, God is not preoccupied in WHAT we give – he’s concerned THAT we give. In 2 Corinthians 8:12, Paul says a gift given is acceptable – but not because of what it is, or how special it is, but because whatever gift is given it comes from whatever the giver has. God doesn't ask in Micah for thousands of sacrifices - it's not a vast quantity of things that God wants to receive. The answer in Micah 6:8, among other things, tells us what God wants - "to walk humbly with your God." To put a spin on it, when we give, we give of ourselves to whoever it is that we give to.
One of the most vivid phrases that helps me see this is in 1 Corinthians 13:5 - "love is not self seeking." Love, as defined by Paul here, does not seek out the good of the self. Love seeks out the good of the other. When we give, we are looking for the good of the other. When we receive, we are looking for the good of our self. When we look for the good of our self, we are not loving as Paul describes it. We are not loving as God loves.
Isn’t that what we love so much about a craft a 5 year old has made when he/she gives it to us? We’re not pleased with the dried out macaroni, splattered glue, spray paint and construction paper. What pleases us is that the child worked, and put his/her effort into the project. The child put his/her heart into the gift. It’s not WHAT was given, it’s THAT it was given. And even when I think of this, I realize, I’m focusing more on what was received than the giving. Maybe as I mature and grow wiser still, one day I’ll be pleased less with the gift, less with the effort, and more that someone was giving of their self.
And isn’t that what God is all about anyway? Giving of one’s self to the other? God gives himself to us, with the desire that we will give ourselves to him. "Walk humbly with your God." And when we do give ourselves to him and to others, that is blessing to us.
-Mike Hendricks