Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:06] This is Patrick Chuck Allen. Welcome to another weekday podcast where today I want to talk about the ripple of generosity. There's this moment in Luke, chapter 6, verse 38 where Jesus says, give and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full. Now listen to these words. Pressed down, shaken together to make room for more running over and poured into your lap. That's a lot of verbs in one little verse. Give, receive, return, pressed, shaken, running, poured. It sounds like motion, like momentum, like something that keeps going long after the moment you started it. It's the picture of a ripple, that kind that starts when one drop hits still water, just one, and suddenly the surface wakes up. The circles move outward, each one touching the next.
[00:01:02] When you give graciously, generously, you start a ripple. Now, notice I didn't say when you give a certain amount, a certain percentage, when you give by a certain decimal point or you have a certain comma next to a certain zero, it's just graciously and generously. It is always about your heart, not about a percentage.
[00:01:24] You think you're just helping a little ministry or feeding families or giving to your church.
[00:01:30] But heaven sees something far deeper, a widening circle that changes economies of love and provision. And in a way that we can't fully grasp, it changes us.
[00:01:43] We start to live awakened.
[00:01:46] We start seeing opportunities instead of obligations.
[00:01:51] We start recognizing people as gifts, not interruptions.
[00:01:56] And here's the crazy thing, the spirit thing is that this ripple, it never really stops. That single moment of generosity touches a volunteer who's tired but gets that one burst of energy to keep showing up.
[00:02:12] Or it feeds a mom who feels invisible and she starts to believe maybe, just maybe, she's seen by God after all. You see, in God's kingdom economy, giving changes the giver as much as the receiver.
[00:02:29] That's what Paul was trying to tell us in Corinthians over in his second letter to Corinthians, chapter 9, verse 11. Yes, you will be enriched in every way so that you can always be generous. And when we take your gifts to those who need them, they will thank God.
[00:02:48] Notice it's not you might be enriched, it's you will. It's not you might, it's you will.
[00:02:55] Giving graciously isn't subtraction. It is multiplication in disguise.
[00:03:01] Because the kingdom runs on generosity, not scarcity.
[00:03:05] The math of heaven does doesn't work like our human math.
[00:03:10] You give, you lose something tangible. Money, time, energy.
[00:03:17] But what you gain can't be carried in a wallet or tracked in an app.
[00:03:22] Things like peace, joy, deep down satisfaction. That this, this right here is what we were made for. To give like God gives the one who didn't measure love by what he kept, but. But by what he gave.
[00:03:38] So maybe the question today isn't how much can I give? Maybe it's where can I start? The next ripple. Because somewhere out there on the other side of your generosity, someone's waiting for proof that God hasn't forgotten them, friend.
[00:03:55] Go be that proof.
[00:03:58] Wow, that.
[00:04:00] That's a heavy load on a podcast. And yet it's never been more true than it is right now.
[00:04:09] Let's be given these things like peace and joy and satisfaction, because we were the giver. God bless you, friend. Thanks so much for joining me on today's weekday podcast.
