Scarcity versus Abundance

The curious house - Photo © 2016 by V. Nesdoly

TODAY’S SPECIAL: Luke 6:37-49

TO CHEW ON: “‘Give and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.’” Luke 6:38

On our daily walk, hubby and I pass a curious house. For a long time it appeared empty—perhaps marked as a tear-down. Then one day someone moved in. We saw interesting changes: murals painted on the facade, the front yard made into a sawdust walk bordered with lawn ornaments. Stuff accumulating in the yard and driveway: mattresses, lawn furniture, bicycle parts, vehicles. We concluded it had become the home of hoarders.

One of the speakers at our church’s Wednesday morning women’s meeting spoke of hoarding. Some points from the notes I took that morning;

• Sin caused us to become hoarders.

• Hoarding begins with the assumption of scarcity—we fear there won’t be enough.

• We can live with a scarcity mentality not only toward material things but also toward relationships:

- I don’t have enough time for people.
- I am not enough.
- If I get too involved I will lose my identity.
- With hoarding there is also an element of secrecy. We hide things away. We keep to ourselves.

But Jesus here challenged His listeners—and us—to live an entirely different way—with an abundance mentality, with hospitality, an open hand, as conduits of His abundance. Then, He says (and I like to think of this as one of the “laws of gravity” of the Kingdom of God), we will receive back, not only the quantity we’ve given but “good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over.”

PRAYER: Dear Jesus, help me, through open-handed, hospitable living and giving, to prove Your law of abundance in my life. Amen.

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Unless otherwise noted all Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.