To Give and Receive
Notes
Transcript
STORY: Playing softball.
STORY: Playing softball.
I used to play fast pitch softball as a kid until 14. I loved the game. I started at second base, then moved to short stop, and finally as catcher. I was quick and an accurate thrower. I used to play catch with my dad or sister almost everyday. We would go to the front yard and just throw back and forth.
The funny thing about playing ball is.... it never works if I only throw the ball. For the game to work, I have to catch the ball first. I have to receive the ball before I can give it to anyone else. I wonder what God thinks of playing ball? of being involved in this game of life?
Giving and receiving in God’s Kingdom is sometimes upside down, sometimes difficult, sometimes the best reminder we can have in a culture that values giving and doing over resting and receiving.
Giving and receiving in God’s Kingdom is sometimes upside down, sometimes difficult, sometimes the best reminder we can have in a culture that values giving and doing over resting and receiving.
Jesus spoke a lot about giving and receiving. One of my favorite passages is
John 15:4–5 “Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.”
John 15:4–5 “Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.”
In this passage the resting and receiving is seen in the word Abide in the vine. While the giving and doing is the fruit.
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine,
My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God. 20–21 God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.
Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2005), Eph 3:14–20.
In the message Bible it says this:
“Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can’t bear grapes by itself but only by being joined to the vine, you can’t bear fruit unless you are joined with me. “I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you’re joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can’t produce a thing.”
“Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can’t bear grapes by itself but only by being joined to the vine, you can’t bear fruit unless you are joined with me. “I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you’re joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can’t produce a thing.”
Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2005), Jn 15:4–5.
What is it that makes you feel like an apartment or suite is your home?