We Make A Life By What We Give
The Source of the Water
There’s a story about a man who was building a house on some land that was out in the middle of nowhere. He needed water for his new home so he hired an old man who was an expert to dig a well for him.
The old man came out and surveyed the land looking for the right spot to sink a shaft and sure enough, when he did, he found water. An underground river that would supply water to the man’s well for his new home.
When he finished building the well and installing the pump, the old man gave the young homeowner some important advice,
“Every day you must pump some water from the well. If you don’t, you’ll be sorry.”
After a while, the young man began to take the cool, sweet water from the well for granted. He had forgotten what the well digger had said. He left on a trip and didn’t even think to have someone come by his house each day to pump water from the well for him.
When he returned home, he went to the well to get some water, but there was no water. He tried the pump again, but no water came from the well.
He went into town to find the old man who had put in the well for him and to tell him that the water had dried up. The old man asked him, “Did you remember to pump water from the well every day?” The young man replied and confessed how he had forgotten, how he had been away on a trip and didn’t think to have someone come and pump water from the well while he was away.
The old man explained, “The water in your well comes from an underground river that feeds the small tributaries of water which are connected to your well. Water must continue to flow through these small tributaries so that your well can continue to receive water. If you quit pumping the water, the ground will dry up slightly and the water can’t find it’s way to your well. When the ground dries up, the water supply is cut off.”
And then he said, “Remember, the source of the water is the river not the well.”
(Story from Taking God at His Word by Dr. Kregg Hood)
“You make a living by what you get, you make a life by what you give.” – Winston Churchill
Forgetting the Source
What happens for so many of us is that we forget the Source of everything we have is not us, not our own strength, not our jobs, our bank accounts, our abilities, not our hard work, and not what we deserve. The Giver of every good and perfect gift is our Father in Heaven. (James 1.17).
Does that mean that we don’t have a part to play? Of course not. Hard work is important. Hard work honors God. Using the talents God has given us to earn an income and provide honors God.
But the ultimate Source of everything we have is not ourselves. It’s God!
It’s not the well, it’s the River.
And if we want to keep the blessing of the water flowing, we must tap into the River of Life every day.
When we forget the River, we will see the well dry up in one way or another.
Here is what I wish the young man in the story could have known. That the ultimate blessing of the water from the well wasn’t just the water that it provided for him, but the water that it could have provided for others.
We are blessed, and the blessings of this life from God are FOR us, but they are NOT JUST for us.
The Story of Abram
You can see this in the life of one of the most blessed people who ever lived on this planet, a man by the name of Abram in Genesis 12.
1 The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. 3 I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.”
This story is about a man by the name of Abram, you may know him better as Abraham or even better by the name Father Abraham.
But what’s interesting is that at this point in the story, Abram is NOT a father. In fact, he can’t even be a father because his wife, Sarai, cannot have kids. (11.30). That’s interesting for a lot of reasons, one of which is that his name, Abram, actually means, “Exalted Father.” And in a few short chapters, his name will be changed to Abraham which means, “Father of many nations.” (ch17v5).
But here, at the very begging of this story God speaks to Abram and makes what seems to be an impossible promise. He promises to bless him in an incredible way.
But before the BLESSING there is a CALLING.
The Calling
1 The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave…”
Before God gave Abram the blessing, He gave him a calling.
God calls Abram to leave something, to let go of something, so that he could then receive the blessing that God had for him.
If Abraham refuses the calling, if he refuses to leave his homeland, to leave everything he has ever known, and to go in faith to an unknown place that God will show him, he will never experience the blessing God has for him.
This is the hardest thing for us, isn’t it? To leave what we know, to let go of what feels certain, to follow God in faith into the unknown.
What we want is for God to show us ahead of time what will happen if we follow in faith. But that, by definition, isn’t faith.
What we want is for God to SHOW us what He has for us, so then we can Leave, Let Go, and Follow.
We want SHOW then GO.
But in God’s economy, the order is reversed. God flips the script and calls us to GO then SHOW.
When we follow in faith and accept His call to let go of what we’re holding onto and leave what we know then God promises to SHOW us where to go and what He has for us!
God tells Abram… “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you.”
Before the blessing there is a calling, but there’s also an invitation.
The Invitation
God tells Abram to “…go to the land that I will show you.”
In other words, Abram isn’t going alone. God is inviting Abram to walk with Him, to go with Him, and God is going to show Abram the land that He has for him.
Far too often in our world, in our culture, we want to skip the journey and get to the end. We want to shortcut our way to our final destination. We don’t want to take the stairs, we want to elevator our way to the top. But when we do that, we miss out on the blessing before the blessing.
God promises Abram, the land between where you are now and where I am calling you to go, along the journey from here to there, I will be with you. I will go with you. I will wander with you. You will not be alone.
And if you read Abram’s story, you’ll discover there are a lot of twists and turns. Things don’t always go according to plan. But God keeps His promise to be with him and to show him where He wants him to go.
Sometimes I wonder if we forget that we have a God who has invited us to walk with Him, that He is a God who has promised to wander with us, to journey with us, to be with us as we move from where we are to the promised land He has for us.
Before the blessing there is a calling. But there’s also an invitation to walk with God.
The Blessing
And then God speaks the blessing over Abram. He says…
2 I will make you into a great nation.
Remember, Abram doesn’t have any children and Sarai at this point in the story is unable to have kids. To Abram, this feels like an impossible promise.
God is speaking a blessing over Abram that doesn’t make sense on paper. Barren women don’t have children. It’s physically impossible. But that physical fact does not affect God’s supernatural blessing.
We think about what we can’t do. God thinks about what He can do.
We see our limitations. God sees Divine possibilities.
And if Abram had never stepped out in faith, He would have never experienced this blessing. In fact, we probably would not even know his name. The only reason we’re talking about him today is because somehow, some way, he found the faith to say YES to the invitation of God to follow Him into the unknown.
You never know what’s on the other side of your YES to God.
You never know what hangs in the balance of you saying YES to God and stepping out in faith to God.
Abram wasn’t seeking to be famous but God promises to make his name great.
Abram wasn’t after God’s blessing but God promises to bless him in an extraordinary way.
But this blessing wasn’t just for Abram. God was going to bless Abram in an amazing way, but it wasn’t just for him or for his benefit.
God says, I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others.
A while back a Starbucks customer announced on social media that he was ending a 23 car pay-it-forward streak when he learned that the order he would have to pay for was $46!
His order was only $6. Could he have paid the $46? I don’t know. That’s a pretty big order at Starbucks for sure. But by deciding not to, the blessing stopped with him.
Abram decided to trust God, to receive the blessing and allow the blessing to flow through him to those around him.
To those who would come after him.
Long Obedience in the Same Direction
Was Abram perfect? No!
If you keep reading you’ll discover quickly that Abram was far from perfect. And that’s important to know because sometimes we fall into the trap of thinking that perfection is a prerequisite to following God and experiencing His blessings.
To be sure, God doesn’t bless disobedience. Remember, before Abram could experience the blessing of God He had to respond in obedience to following the calling of God to let go and leave where he was to go with God to the land God would show him.
But Abram would make plenty of mistakes along the way. Not once, but twice he would lie about Sarai being his wife. When Sarai was still unable to have children after God’s promise that He would make Abram into a great nation, they took matters into their own hands and Abraham had a son with Sarah’s servant, Hagar. This was not God’s plan. And Abram certainly made many more poor decisions along the way.
I share all that just to show you that perfection is not a prerequisite for the blessing of God. Now you can’t continue to live a life of sin and expect to experience God’s blessing. God doesn’t bless disobedience. But at every turn Abraham turned back to God. In fact Abraham was known as God’s friend forever (2 Chron 20.7).
Perfection isn’t a prerequisite for the blessing of God, but long obedience in the same direction is.
Blessed Through You
Abram leveraged his life for the purpose of God and the glory of God. God blessed him so that He could bless the world through Him.
And that’s exactly what God did. If you fast forward to the New Testament, this is what the Apostle Paul wrote about Abram who became known as Abraham:
Galatians 3.8-9; 14
8 What’s more, the Scriptures looked forward to this time when God would make the Gentiles right in his sight because of their faith. God proclaimed this good news to Abraham long ago when he said, “All nations will be blessed through you.” 9 So all who put their faith in Christ share the same blessing Abraham received because of his faith.
14 Through Christ Jesus, God has blessed the Gentiles with the same blessing he promised to Abraham, so that we who are believers might receive the promised Holy Spirit through faith.
If you are a believer in Jesus today, if you are a person of faith, then you are a direct recipient of a blessing that was promised to Abraham and flowed through Abraham to us! Through that original blessing we have received the promised Holy Spirit!
And God’s original invitation to Abraham, to walk with Him, has been extended to you! God wants to walk with you! God’s original promise to Abraham, I will bless all nations through you, has been extended to you. God wants to bless others through you!
What About You?
I think Winston Churchill might have been right when he said,
“You make a living by what you get, you make a life by what you give.”
So today, if you will allow me to ask you think question, “What do you give?”
For many of us, we trust God with our eternal salvation, but we have trouble trusting Him with our finances. It’s irrational. It doesn’t make sense. But it’s true. We have a hard time letting go. We have a hard time leaving what we know for what is unknown.
We have trouble giving in faith and believing that God will provide for us.
If you are a member of your local church and you are a GIVER, let me say thank you. It is obvious to me that you have come to understand this eternal truth, that we truly are blessed to be a blessing.
If you are a member of your local church and for whatever reason, you have NOT been a GIVER up to this point, can I extend this invitation to you to become a giver?
Not because the church needs your money.
Not because the church is in some kind of crisis or has some great financial need.
No, the reason I want to extend you this invitation today to become a GIVER is because of this truth revealed in scripture.
Giving is an essential part of following Jesus.
And chances are, if you’re not GIVING you probably aren’t GROWING as a disciple of Jesus.
Blessed to be a Blessing
We are blessed to be a blessing.
Jesus himself said it when he said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ – Acts 20.35
Why would Jesus say that? Why would his disciples need to know that?
Because, the Source of the water is the River not the well.
And if we want to keep the blessing of the water flowing, we must tap into the River of Life every day.
We have been blessed by God, every one of us in one way or another. But that blessing wasn’t just for us. It was meant to flow through us to those around us.
We are blessed to be a blessing.
So how can you be a blessing to someone else today?
Maybe a next step for you is to start giving if you haven’t been giving.
Maybe a next step for you is to start serving.
Whatever God is calling you to do or to give, let me just encourage you to take a next step.
We all know that one day, this life will be over. And we won’t be remembered for what we got. We will be remembered for what we gave.
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