Our Generous God: Discover God’S Generosity to You in Christ

Copyright © 2011 Joel Bruce

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ISBN: 978-1-4497-1748-3 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-1747-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-1749-0 (hc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011929263

Printed in the United States of America

WestBow Press rev. date: 6/20/2011

I dedicate this book to my family, especially my awesome wife, Lorraine. This book is the culmination of months of research and writing, and you carried an extra workload at home while I was working on it. I couldn’t have done it without you.

Thanks also to my kids. Other than the gifts I have received from God, and my wife, you are my greatest treasures. Andrew, Jonathan, and Bethany: you are the best kids in the world.

And, my final thanks go to the One who makes my work all possible: the Lord Jesus Christ. Without you, I am nothing.

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1. God’s Generosity in Christ

Part 1. The Gift of Salvation

Chapter 2. Saved By Grace

Chapter 3. New in Christ

Part 2. The Gift of Adoption

Chapter 4. Our Adoption in Christ

Chapter 5. Adoption: What It Means

Chapter 6. God Our Father

Chapter 7. Abba—The Deepest Level of Intimacy

Chapter 8. Adoption—Living as God’s Children

Part 3. The Gift of Spiritual Siblings

Chapter 9. Brothers and Sisters Through Christ

Chapter 10. Brothers and Sisters in The Church

Part 4. The Gift of Being an Heir

Chapter 11. Heirs of God

Part 5. The Gift of an Inheritance

Chapter 12. About Our Inheritance

Part 6. Our Response

Closing

Endnotes

Bibliography

Introduction

Who am I in Christ?

That question resonated in my mind as I thought about what Christ had done for me, and about my new identity in Christ. I understood a lot about who I was as a Christ follower, but I still had more questions than answers. So, I went on a search through the New Testament to discover who I am in Christ. This book is a result of that search, and I hope that what I discovered will help you fully understand what God has done for you through Christ. Above all, I learned that God had done far more for me in Christ than I ever imagined.

God has given abundantly to us in Christ. God owns it all. Since God is the Creator of everything, everything that exists is His. He can do whatever He wants to with His creation. So, it is amazing to find out that God has abundantly blessed every follower of Christ. In Christ, God has made you rich. 2 Corinthians 8:9 says:

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.

Jesus Christ was rich as the Lord of creation, and yet He became poor so we could be rich. God has done that for you and me because He loves us that much. And, because God says we are rich in Christ, it’s helpful to explore what that means to us. What we’ll find in our discovery is that we have received much from God through Christ.

Our Gifts From Christ

As we begin our search, we first realize that we have received five gifts in Christ. Each gift is ours freely through Christ, and is a further expression of God’s generosity to us. The first gift we receive is salvation. God offers the free gift of salvation to everyone who believes in His Son. Salvation is a free gift because it is not earned or deserved. Because of what Christ has done for us, we receive His gift of eternal life and a great life in Him.

Second, in Christ, we receive the gift of adoption. Adoption is a gift because God has made us His sons and daughters through faith in Christ. It is a gift because, like salvation, we haven’t done anything to deserve it. Our adoption through Christ is completely based on what He has done for us, not on what we have done for Him. But God loves us so much that He wants us in His family.

Third, another gift we receive is spiritual siblings. If you are in Christ, you aren’t alone. You are part of the biggest family on earth, along with other sons and daughters of God. Every person in Christ has a common bond that we share. We aren’t part of a club, fraternity, or some other organization. Through Christ, you become part of the same family as every other Christ follower, including over a billion people worldwide. That is God’s gift to you.

Fourth, because we have been adopted, we are heirs through Christ. Being an heir is a gift because it’s the path to eternal blessings in heaven. As an heir, you are in line for some great stuff waiting for you. You have been raised to a high position in God’s house as an heir. Just like the other gifts, it’s a free gift that is yours in Christ.

The final gift you receive from God is an inheritance. You have an inheritance in heaven that is indescribable. We’ll explore a little later the inheritance waiting for you in heaven, and you’ll see how blessed you will be forever. The greatest gift you will have in heaven is being in the presence of God for eternity. But, you will also receive a great inheritance as an heir in Christ. And those blessings are yours forever.

You are rich in Christ. Through Him, you receive the best gifts you could ever receive in life. God loves you enough to be generous to you.

A Look Ahead

As we get started, I’d like to ask you to reflect on a couple of things while you’re reading the book. First, think about who God is. God’s generosity to us reveals a lot about His character. God freely and abundantly gives to us because He is a giving God. Everything about His nature reflects His own generosity. He has given us life as the Creator God, given us eternal life through His Son, and given us other gifts in Christ. God has given generously because He is a generous God.

Second, reflect on your own value to God. You must be pretty valuable for God to bless you so much in Christ. God has placed a high value on who you are by being generous to you. God’s generosity not only says everything about His character but also how important you are to Him. You have intrinsic value because He created you, but you have even greater value as His son or daughter in Christ. If you ever begin to look down on yourself, remember how valuable you are to God. His gifts to you prove that you are incredibly valuable.

Third, consider what your response should be to God’s generosity. As we’ll see later in the book, each of us has been given the opportunity to be generous, too. In fact, we are most like God when we are generous, because generosity defines who He is. So, begin to think of what specific things you can do to be generous.

Without further delay, I present my book to you. I hope you enjoy unwrapping your gifts from God, and discover your generous God.

Chapter One

God’s Generosity in Christ

God has been so generous to us. Christ became poor for you so that you by his poverty might become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9). Now, before we go any further, it’s important to define what rich means. At first, you might think that the word rich here refers to monetary wealth. It’s easy to believe that because so many church leaders today teach that God wants everyone to be wealthy. The problem is that the Bible never teaches that God will make us financially rich. And anyone who teaches that is simply off base.

Contrary to popular opinion, God is not our piggy bank. We don’t just ask God for any amount of money and He writes the check. It sounds nice but the Bible never promises to make us rich in the monetary sense. Instead, the Bible lays out some principles of what our priorities should be when it comes to money. A wise man or woman puts God first in his or her finances, and saves money for unexpected expenses. Then, he or she can live on the rest. But, none of the biblical principles dealing with money ever promise us that we will be millionaires if we follow the right ten step program. It’s just not in the Bible.

Even worse, the whole concept of a prosperity gospel misses the point. Think about it this way. Let’s say that you were financially rich. God answers your prayer, and tomorrow morning you find a huge stack of $1000 dollar bills on your doorstep. Overnight, you’ve become a millionaire. Congratulations. Now, what will you do with the money? If you think your life would instantly be better, consider all the lottery winners you hear about in the media. You will rarely see anyone’s life turn out for the better, and most of the time his or her life becomes a wreck. Overnight wealth often brings you problems you never anticipated. You discover you have friends you never knew you had. Many lottery winners have openly said they wished they never won in the first place.

But, even if you never win the lottery, money by itself isn’t very important. The stuff we value isn’t that valuable. If it were possible for you to own all the wealth in the world, hundreds of trillions of dollars, you could only enjoy that wealth for a relatively short time. In the span of a lifetime, even eighty or ninety years, you could spend a million dollars a day and never run out of money. But, your life will come to an end, and then all of that wealth will go to someone else. You might think that the material things of earth are important, but God has a much different perspective on money. And the things that He values are more valuable than anything on earth. His riches are priceless and eternal. And, because He loves us, He has freely given those riches to us in Christ.

A Generous God

God has been generous to us as members of His Family. As a follower of Christ, you have become rich as part of the Family of God. You have received abundantly from God by grace, because He loved you enough to bless you. None of us has ever deserved the gifts of God, but He has lavished His gifts on us as His children.

As we look at our gifts in Christ, we discover how generous our God really is. Many times, especially when we face difficulties in life, we begin to doubt God’s goodness to us. We think that God doesn’t love us anymore, and that He has deserted us. And it’s easy to think that. But, God has done so much to demonstrate His love for each person in Christ. God couldn’t love you more than He does right now. And, He has shown how much He loves you by being generous to you. When you understand what God has done for you, I believe you will view God differently and discover the great God that you have in Christ.

True love is giving love. God loved us so much that He sent His Son to die for us (John 3:16). But, God’s love didn’t stop at the cross of Christ. His love is expressed through the gifts we receive as Christ followers. God’s gifts to us are a demonstration of His love for us. He is loving and good to each of us in Christ.

Better Gifts

Our gifts in Christ are far better than anything we can ever have in this world. You will probably receive a lot of gifts in your life, and some might even be expensive. But, none of those gifts can match what God has given us as His Family. There are three reasons why God’s gifts are so much better. First, His gifts are given by grace. We haven’t done anything to merit God’s generosity to us in Christ. God freely gives us His gifts because He loves us and wants to bless us. Everything that we receive in Christ is by His grace

Second, our gifts are eternal. The gifts that God has given us, and will give us, last forever. You will never lose your gifts: they are yours for eternity. And nothing will ever diminish the riches that we receive in Christ. Nothing on this planet will last forever, but everything we receive from Christ will.

Third, God’s gifts are given freely to everyone in Christ. God is never capricious with His gifts. He doesn’t discriminate based on our looks, or our clothes, or our family background. There is no ruling class in the Kingdom of God. Every person in Christ receives the same gifts from God. He is generous to each of us in Christ, no matter who we are or what we’ve done.

Why It Matters

We can’t talk enough about God’s generosity because we often overlook it. We forget, or fail to see, all the great things God has done for us in Christ. Sometimes, we even think God has been holding out on us, and not giving to us what we need. But, God is not stingy and He never has been. As we look at our five gifts in Christ, we see just how generous God has been to each of us. By understanding those gifts, we discover a God who loves us generously.

We often think that, if God is not doing what I want when I want it, then either He is not God or He is not loving. But, He has demonstrated just how important we are to Him by lavishing His gifts on us. The amount of money I have in the bank is not a reflection of God’s love for me. If we don’t have something we need today, it’s not because God isn’t capable of meeting our need, or that He is unconcerned about it. He always has a purpose in how He responds to our needs. And God’s actions in the past—His generosity to us—prove that He loves us and cares about us.

The next time you’re tempted to think God doesn’t care, or that He is stingy toward you, remember what God has already freely given you in Christ. He has done so much for you because He loves you. And He always will.

Part One

The Gift of Salvation

Through Christ, you’ve been given the greatest gift possible: the gift of salvation. In Christ, all of our sins are washed away, and we have a new life in Him. Before Christ, we had no life and no hope. With Christ, we have eternal life and abundant hope. If you are in Christ, your life has changed completely for the better. He took away your life of sin and replaced it with a life of purpose and meaning. In Christ, you have received the unbelievable gift of salvation.

2 Corinthians 5:21 says, For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. God loved you enough to provide the gift of salvation, and He did that by sacrificing His only Son. Jesus, the Lord of creation, became sin for you so you didn’t have to die condemned. He took on your sin so you could take on His righteousness. That is what the gift of salvation means. Under the law, you deserved the penalty for your sins: eternal death and separation from a loving God. But, under grace, God has freely given you the gift of salvation.

Salvation in Christ is a gift because we could never do enough to become righteous on our own. If we worked 24/7 to please God we couldn’t do it because we are sinners. Our natural inclination is to sin because we are born with a sin nature. That is the bad news. But, the Good News of Christ is that we can receive forgiveness in Him. All the bad things we have done have been forgiven and we are empowered to live a brand-new life in Him. If you’re in Christ, you have received the incredible gift of salvation.

Chapter Two

Saved By Grace

Mary and Faith

Mary was a good girl who grew up in a nice neighborhood with nice parents. Everything about Mary and her life was nice: her clothes, her hair, and her family. From the outside looking in, you would imagine Mary as the poster child of Christianity. Everything about her life seemed normal. But, the problem for Mary was that she had religion without a relationship. She knew about the God of the Bible without knowing Him personally. Mary is