Ministry From The Far Side

Harder to Receive Than To Give

We often hear the overused phrase, "It is better to give than to receive."  Those words are scoffed and scorned by every child, especially in this Christmas season.  Visions of wrapped presents and stuffed stockings are in the hearts of most children.

But the negative of that phrase is very true also.  It IS hard to receive.

There are some gifts that just humble me.
They challenge my sense of pride of self-sufficiency.
They make me want to say NO, NO, NO...give it to someone else.

I had that situation come up a couple days ago, when someone handed me a undeserved gift and said, "Merry Christmas early."  I looked at it and really was unsure of what to say.

Did I love it?  Of course.
Would I value it?  Most definitely.
But was it hard to accept?  Yes to that too.

Why?  What part of my pride found it difficult to receive? 

It is because we think we must DESERVE it...EARN it...PAY some way for it.

Not too different from God's grace as well, the undeserved gift of forgiveness and mercy.  Perhaps that same pride is the reason so many can't accept it, choosing to go the way of religion, attempting to live in such a way as to earn my salvation.

You can't earn a gift.  You just have to swallow your pride and say thanks...and enjoy.

Quotations

I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
        -Winston Churchill

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
     - George Bernard Shaw

A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man; a debt he proposes to pay off with your money.
    -G Gordon Liddy

Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.         -James Bovard, Civil Libertarian (1994)

Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.
    -Douglas Casey, Classmate of Bill Clinton at Georgetown University

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
    -P.J. O'Rourke,

Civil Libertarian Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it; If it keeps moving, regulate it...and if it stops moving, subsidize it.
     -Ronald Reagan (1986)

Great Quote

A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell.

C.S. Lewis

Just Do It

It behooves every man to remember that the work of the critic is of altogether secondary importance, and that in the end, progress is accomplished by the man who does things.

--Theodore Roosevelt

Try

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.

--Theodore Roosevelt

Easter

"FOLLOWING JESUS doesn't get us where we want to go. It gets us to where Jesus goes, where we meet him in Resurrection surprise: "My Lord and my God!" 1 
                                                      Eugene H. Peterson, The Jesus Way