The Love of Giving

Giving is probably the highest form of loving when you come down to it. Though, I guess in some ways you can give without loving if you’re doing it just because you feel obligated to. But I don’t think you can really love someone if the love doesn’t bring you to give to them. Whether that means giving them money, giving them your stuff, or giving them your time and service.

Generosity is without a doubt a lovely thing. It is beneficial to both ourselves and to those around us. Giving is such a beautiful thing that either one of these two things happen: 

1. You love someone so much that eventually you cannot help but give to them. 
2. You give to someone, even if you may not love the person, and you begin to love them more and more as you continue to give.

There is simply no way to separate the concepts of loving and giving.

And guess what, giving is and always has been God’s preferred, even favorite, form of revealing his love for us. “For God so loved the world that He GAVE His only Son…” – John 3:16 Again, this is without a doubt the most extreme act of love in our entire history! So, if God the Father loved us by giving His Son and God the Son loved us by giving His life, wouldn’t you think that we should love by giving up our money, things, time, and selves to Him and others?

I hope that, as the title of this post suggests, you now grasp that to give is in fact a form of loving. But the title also suggests something else, the idea of loving to give. That may sound intimidating, because we are so used to accumulating as much stuff as possible for ourselves. Maybe because of that tendency it even seems impossible. And I get that, yet it is very possible and is one of the most wonderful behaviors that you can experience and develop.

The Bible actually touches on this concept and it is even praised by God: “So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver.” – 2 Corinthians 9:7

My challenge is that, through God’s grace, you move from loving by giving into loving to give, which, based on everything I’ve said so far, really means loving to love.

To get to that point, you must first understand that everything we have is actually given to us in the first place by God because He made and owns all things. We are just stewards of the things that He has allowed us to have. When you get this fact it is much easier to give your possessions to and use them for the Lord. Beyond that, our Heavenly Father is obviously a giver, so it shouldn’t be very hard for us to give up our things to others as well. When it’s easy for us to give, it becomes easy for us to love to give.

So what are you waiting for, get out there and give!