Season of Preparation Day Twenty-One: God’s Generosity

There is a saying that all good things must come to an end, but only a person who doesn’t know Jesus can think this is true. There is no end to the goodness of God or to his generosity to us.

How many times has he extended his generosity to man and how many times have we forgotten that generosity to wander back into our own disobedient lives? We read the accounts of the unfaithfulness of the Israelites in the Old Testament and wonder how they could they be so forgetful, just we are ourselves forgetting our own errors and sinfulness.

When held up in comparison to the goodness of God, most of what we see as our “goodness” looks like a filthy mess deserving of nothing but God’s punishment.

But God’s generosity is without end. We love to read of the good things God promises, like this verse in Lamentations.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. Lamentations 3:22-23

 And we tend to forget (or skip altogether) other promises like this one in chapter 10 of Matthew.

So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven. Matthew 10:32-33

 We focus on the promise that Jesus will acknowledge of before his Father. How awesome is this to know that Jesus will one day personally present us to God with the introduction (not that God doesn’t know us) of a dear friend.

But there’s another promise in Jesus’ words that should fill us with fear—that he will deny us before God if we deny him before men.

This is only one of the long list of things we can do to earn God’s judgment and not his blessing.

But God’s generosity can’t be “out sinned.” All our failings and unfaithfulness haven’t exhausted God’s generosity, nor can they.

The evidence of that immeasurable generosity is on glorious display in the birth of Christ.

As a parent—and now a grandparent—when I hold one of my little ones and think of their future, it’s not always with a sense of excited anticipation. Sometimes I think of their future in ways that make my heart hurt. I think of the times people will say things that wound them, of their first broken heart, of all the ways the world will work to pull them into a life of sin and the challenges they’ll face to resist.

I can only imagine how God felt when he sent his perfect son into the same broken world that grieves my heart for my little ones, especially since he knew what the final moments of Jesus’ life would be.

But he did it for me. He did it for you, for all of mankind. What kind of generosity gives like that to an undeserving people?

A limitless generosity. A generosity that can only come from an immensely loving Father.

In Christ we have received all that we need and far more than we deserve.

This year, as I go through the moments and activities of the Christmas season may I be swept away by God’s generosity. When I think of that infant in a manger—the newborn Messiah—may I be awestruck by the most generous gift of all.

Thank you for sharing your Christmas season with me. This is the final installment in my Season of Preparation series. I pray your Christmas season has been blessed you with a renewed love and passion for our Savior, Jesus Christ and that the wonder of God’s generosity to us in the birth, life, and death of his Son leaves you with an awestruck sense of peace that lasts throughout the year. You can find me at www.lorialtebaumer.com. I’d love to hear from you.