Luke 6:38 Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will be poured into your lap. The measure you use will be measured back to you. To give is an expression of GOD's nature. When God expressed His love to the world, He gave. He did not just give as one gives to a beggar, a tiny fraction of the surplus of wealth and riches of heaven. He gave as one giving the best He had, His only beloved Son. Many know, but few understand the implications. That is to say, GOD did not give us the unwanted, the overrun, the rejects of heaven but His treasure, the One and Only one of heaven. GOD's giving is more than sharing what He has as what best buddies do. He gave us the most precious things He had when He gave us His one and only Son. Therefore, when GOD expressed His love, it was packed with sincerity and generosity that cost Him, figuratively, heart pain. David understood this principle when he said that he would not offer anything to GOD that cost me nothing. In the same manner, Solomon offered to GOD an extravagant sacrifice of 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheeps for the dedication of the Lord's temple. These figures are meaningless unless we can add some understanding to them. If one sheep can feed fifty people, then 120,000 sheep can feed 6 million people. An ox is about the weight of seven sheep. Twenty-two thousand oxen would equate to the weight of 154,000 sheep. The amount can feed 7.7 million people. In total, Solomon's offering was a meal for 13.7 million people. According to the BAS Library, Jerusalem's population during the reign of King Solomon was around 5,000 people. Compared to the population, the number of the sacrifice was astounding and beyond imagination. Solomon did not need to overkill in his offering, but he did. GOD is not a beast that takes delight in the blood of oxen and sheep. However, in all sacrifices, GOD wants to see blood. If there is no blood, then it is not a sacrifice. Therefore, if Solomon's offering did not cause him pain, he would not, figuratively, bleed for it. In other words, if something were to cost us something, it must cause us heart pain. Only then would it be an acceptable sacrifice to GOD. If not, we are only offering GOD our surplus or donation that we can live without. Only when we understand giving as GOD gives will we know how to reciprocate, activating His promise of a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will our giving be compounded back to us. As much as the principle might sound simple, GOD will return us more and above what we give, but it is not. Many would not give because it is not within our nature to give. As natural as a dog barks and a cat meows, we take, snatch, grab, hoard, rob, steal, etc. Therefore, to give is against our grain. In his epistle, the Apostle James states that we crave what we do not have and will kill and covet to obtain it. We quarrel and fight. GOD knows who we are beneath our facade. To guard against our default desire to take whatever does not belong to us, GOD put within the Ten Commandments that You shall not steal. Even that is not enough. He added another two commandments: You shall not covet, and You shall not murder. The first one is to prevent stealing from taking root in us by forbidding us from harbouring secret desires of coveting what belongs to others. The latter is to guard against killing others to take over their possessions, like David killing Uriah the Hittite and taking his wife, Bathsheba, as his woman. If it is not within our nature to take what does not belong to us, then GOD will not have gone to the extent of placing three out of the Ten Commandments addressing the weakness. And dangle such a big carrot of overflowing returns of a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will be poured out to us. That is, when we give an apple, we reap a tree of apples. Or, like Abraham, who offered GOD his son and reaped descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky. GOD is exceptionally generous with His promises, outshining us in our giving. The next question is if GOD's promises are easily achievable, then everyone should be living in the promised land flowing with milk and honey. However, most of us are not. If not, then we need to look deeper into His promises, as we might be assuming something wrongly. GOD's promises are more challenging to achieve than we can imagine. The challenge is before we can give, our covetous nature must die. Without it dying, we cannot give. In other words, we are locked within our covetousness. It is as challenging as getting a stingy person to be generous, a rebellious child to be obedient, or a lazy man to be diligent. On the surface, changing might not be a big issue as it is a matter of orientation. Yes, if only we could orientate the sun to rise from the west and set in the east. Even Jesus, a Man of miracles, looked at the rich young man and shook His head. He could do nothing for him except to say, "Truly I tell you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again, I tell you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." The rich young man was much better than many as he was obedient to the commandments - Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, honour your father and mother, and love your neighbour as yourself. The one thing he could not do is to give. He could not give up his wealth for the kingdom of GOD as Jesus wanted of him. The unfortunate truth is that many are like little children who cannot give up the little they can grab in their hands for the much that is in GOD's hands. They only want GOD to give them abundantly without them having to give anything first. However, GOD's principle does not work this way. If not, Jesus would not have instructed us otherwise and not to give, and it will be given to us. Therefore, giving is a prerequisite to receiving. Jesus, indisputably, came as the truth, and what He says is the way. Hence, whatever He instructs, we must follow. However, the hidden issue is not that we do not wish to follow, but by default, we cannot. That is what many are unaware of. The Apostle Paul understood when he said, "For I do not do the good I want to do. Instead, I keep on doing the evil I do not want to do. And if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it." Jesus knows and understands our weakness and incapability, and He has a solution for us. Therefore, He said, "If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me." What must we deny? We must deny the sinful carnal man within us. This carnal man is not dead but very much alive within us. He is our best buddy in sin. He is the nagging voice luring us to do evil and the disapproving voice to do good. The Apostle Paul referred to him as our flesh. He said, "For the flesh craves what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are opposed to each other, so we do not do what we want." In other words, we do not have much choice but to listen to the flesh as long as he is alive within us. If not, he will nag 24/7 until we surrender. Consequently, we often do things that we regret later. Whoever listens to his flesh cannot obey GOD's commandments and will not please Him. As long as the flesh is alive within us, we can only be carnal Christians and not Christians transformed in the image of Christ. To be transformed Christians, we must be able to say, 'I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.' The crucifixion is in mind. It is in our thinking. We need to crucify the mind of our flesh. Therefore, the Apostle Paul urged us, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." What that means is we must not think according to the logic of the world but to spiritual logic. We need to learn to think according to the wisdom of GOD's spiritual laws and not the wisdom of the world. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. To carnal thinking, to give is to rob ourselves by ourselves, and this is a disputable fact. When we give, we will have less. No one ever gives and yet to have more. Hence, the less we give, the more we have. Therefore, no one with a rational mind would rob himself of good things by giving them away. The rich young man who wanted to obtain eternal life is likewise. He could do many things for GOD except to give. On the surface, he is a pious person, but deep within, he is self-centred. The motive of his actions is all for himself - to achieve abundant life on earth and eternal life in heaven. He could not give of his wealth as it would affect his abundant life on earth. Hence, he hoped to obtain his eternal life by doing and not by giving. Not giving is not a sin, as GOD never state in the Ten Commandments that You might give or be cursed. However, it is a sign of a lack of faith in GOD, and it will affect our ability to receive from Him. Proverbs 3 states, "Honour the LORD with your wealth and with the firstfruits of all your crops; then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will overflow with new wine." That means if we share with GOD our wealth and all that we have, He will bless us with abundance, plentiful and overflowing. If not, the opposite will happen - scarcity, lack and shortfall. Why should this be so? We must remember that the ground is cursed after the fall of man, as it will yield for us thorns and thistles. That means when we plant a tomato plant, we will not get tomatoes but weeds. When we start a business, instead of making a profit, we make losses. As a rule of thumb, nine out of ten businesses will fail, even for well-funded companies with no exception. Whatever hard work we sow into the cursed ground, it is like sowing into a block hole. It will not be the result we expect. For this reason, we cannot look to the ground to give us the works of our hands. Instead, we must look upwards towards GOD. We need Him to nullify the curse of the ground so that we reap the fruit of our hands. Many are unaware that everyone is walking on cursed ground because we are spiritually blinded to the wilderness we are in. We cannot see beyond the physical to understand the spiritual realm of GOD. No matter how high we climb or how far we walk, wherever we turn or wherever we go, it does not matter because everywhere is the wilderness. Only GOD can lead us into His promised land that we will experience blessedness, for it is as described in the book of Deuteronomy, a good land, a land of brooks and fountains and springs that flow through the valleys and hills; a land of wheat, barley, vines, fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of olive oil and honey; a land where you will eat food without scarcity, where we will lack nothing; a land whose rocks are iron and whose hills are ready to be mined for copper. When we eat and are satisfied, we are to bless the LORD our God for the good land. We must remember that the ground is cursed, and nothing grows in it. Whatever excellent efforts we put in will go to waste. Therefore, we cannot expect to sow on earth and reap from earth. We can only expect to sow on earth and reap from heaven, seeking GOD to bless the work of our hands. We must give against our nature to give, having faith in GOD that He will enlarge our boundaries and multiply our hard work. Therefore, giving is not an option but an assurance that we will reap what we sow. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will be poured into us. Prayer: Oh God, we thank you for this understanding of the passage that You are our Jehovah Jireh. Teach us to sow generously whilst on this earth so that we will reap a abundant return in Heaven. In Jesus Name, Amen