Riverside, California, United States - Harvenst Ministry with Greg Laurie Daily Devotion "Receiving from Giving"There is one who scatters, yet increases more; and there is one who withholds more than is right, but it leads to poverty.(Proverbs 11:24)
A mother who wanted to teach her daughter the joy of giving gave her both a quarter and a dollar to take to church one Sunday morning. She told her daughter that she could put in either one; the choice was hers. As they were leaving church, the mother asked her daughter what she ended up giving to the Lord.
The little girl replied, "I was going to give the dollar, but just before the offering, the man in the pulpit said we should be cheerful givers. I knew I would be a lot more cheerful if I just gave the quarter."
That is how a lot of us are. We think, I am not cheerful about giving, so I suppose I had better keep it for myself. But we need to understand that God wants to change our hearts. We need to discover the joy of giving. And if we haven't yet discovered it, then we need to ask God to change our hearts because giving is a blessing. We can experience joy in it.
Jesus said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20:35). It is hard for children to wrap their minds around that truth. But as we get older, and especially if we become parents, we discover the joy of giving. We actually find more pleasure in giving than in receiving. The word Jesus used for blessed is a word that could be translated "happy". In other words, the Bible is saying that if you want to be a happy person, then be a generous person. If you want to be a happy person, then be a giving person.[Today's devotional is an excerpt from Every Day with Jesus by Greg Laurie, 2013]
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It was Jesus who said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." Want to be a happy person? Then be a generous person.
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Today's Bible Reading:
Song of Solomon 1:1 The Song of songs, which is Solomon’s.
Beloved
2 Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth;
for your love is better than wine.
3 Your oils have a pleasing fragrance.
Your name is oil poured out,
therefore the virgins love you.
4 Take me away with you.
Let us hurry.
The king has brought me into his rooms.
Friends
We will be glad and rejoice in you.
We will praise your love more than wine!
Beloved
They are right to love you.
5 I am dark, but lovely,
you daughters of Jerusalem,
like Kedar’s tents,
like Solomon’s curtains.
6 Don’t stare at me because I am dark,
because the sun has scorched me.
My mother’s sons were angry with me.
They made me keeper of the vineyards.
I haven’t kept my own vineyard.
7 Tell me, you whom my soul loves,
where you graze your flock,
where you rest them at noon;
For why should I be as one who is veiled
beside the flocks of your companions?
Lover
8 If you don’t know, most beautiful among women,
follow the tracks of the sheep.
Graze your young goats beside the shepherds’ tents.
9 I have compared you, my love,
to a steed in Pharaoh’s chariots.
10 Your cheeks are beautiful with earrings,
your neck with strings of jewels.
11 We will make you earrings of gold,
with studs of silver.
Beloved
12 While the king sat at his table,
my perfume spread its fragrance.
13 My beloved is to me a sachet of myrrh,
that lies between my breasts.
14 My beloved is to me a cluster of henna blossoms
from the vineyards of En Gedi.
Lover
15 Behold,[a] you are beautiful, my love.
Behold, you are beautiful.
Your eyes are doves.
Beloved
16 Behold, you are beautiful, my beloved, yes, pleasant;
and our couch is verdant.
Lover
17 The beams of our house are cedars.
Our rafters are firs.
Beloved
2:1 I am a rose of Sharon,
a lily of the valleys.
Lover
2 As a lily among thorns,
so is my love among the daughters.
Beloved
3 As the apple tree among the trees of the wood,
so is my beloved among the sons.
I sat down under his shadow with great delight,
his fruit was sweet to my taste.
4 He brought me to the banquet hall.
His banner over me is love.
5 Strengthen me with raisins,
refresh me with apples;
For I am faint with love.
6 His left hand is under my head.
His right hand embraces me.
7 I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem,
by the roes, or by the hinds of the field,
that you not stir up, nor awaken love,
until it so desires.
8 The voice of my beloved!
Behold, he comes,
leaping on the mountains,
skipping on the hills.
9 My beloved is like a roe or a young deer.
Behold, he stands behind our wall!
He looks in at the windows.
He glances through the lattice.
10 My beloved spoke, and said to me,
“Rise up, my love, my beautiful one, and come away.
11 For, behold, the winter is past.
The rain is over and gone.
12 The flowers appear on the earth.
The time of the singing has come,
and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.
13 The fig tree ripens her green figs.
The vines are in blossom.
They give out their fragrance.
Arise, my love, my beautiful one,
and come away.”
Lover
14 My dove in the clefts of the rock,
In the hiding places of the mountainside,
Let me see your face.
Let me hear your voice;
for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely.
15 Catch for us the foxes,
the little foxes that plunder the vineyards;
for our vineyards are in blossom.
Beloved
16 My beloved is mine, and I am his.
He browses among the lilies.
17 Until the day is cool, and the shadows flee away,
turn, my beloved,
and be like a roe or a young deer on the mountains of Bether.
3:1 By night on my bed,
I sought him whom my soul loves.
I sought him, but I didn’t find him.
2 I will get up now, and go about the city;
in the streets and in the squares I will seek him whom my soul loves.
I sought him, but I didn’t find him.
3 The watchmen who go about the city found me;
“Have you seen him whom my soul loves?”
4 I had scarcely passed from them,
when I found him whom my soul loves.
I held him, and would not let him go,
until I had brought him into my mother’s house,
into the room of her who conceived me.
5 I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem,
by the roes, or by the hinds of the field,
that you not stir up, nor awaken love,
until it so desires.
6 Who is this who comes up from the wilderness like pillars of smoke,
perfumed with myrrh and frankincense,
with all spices of the merchant?
7 Behold, it is Solomon’s carriage!
Sixty mighty men are around it,
of the mighty men of Israel.
8 They all handle the sword, and are expert in war.
Every man has his sword on his thigh,
because of fear in the night.
9 King Solomon made himself a carriage
of the wood of Lebanon.
10 He made its pillars of silver,
its bottom of gold, its seat of purple,
the middle of it being paved with love,
from the daughters of Jerusalem.
11 Go out, you daughters of Zion, and see king Solomon,
with the crown with which his mother has crowned him,
in the day of his weddings,
in the day of the gladness of his heart.
Lover
4:1 Behold, you are beautiful, my love.
Behold, you are beautiful.
Your eyes are doves behind your veil.
Your hair is as a flock of goats,
that descend from Mount Gilead.
2 Your teeth are like a newly shorn flock,
which have come up from the washing,
where every one of them has twins.
None is bereaved among them.
3 Your lips are like scarlet thread.
Your mouth is lovely.
Your temples are like a piece of a pomegranate behind your veil.
4 Your neck is like David’s tower built for an armory,
whereon a thousand shields hang,
all the shields of the mighty men.
5 Your two breasts are like two fawns
that are twins of a roe,
which feed among the lilies.
6 Until the day is cool, and the shadows flee away,
I will go to the mountain of myrrh,
to the hill of frankincense.
7 You are all beautiful, my love.
There is no spot in you.
8 Come with me from Lebanon, my bride,
with me from Lebanon.
Look from the top of Amana,
from the top of Senir and Hermon,
from the lions’ dens,
from the mountains of the leopards.
9 You have ravished my heart, my sister, my bride.
You have ravished my heart with one of your eyes,
with one chain of your neck.
10 How beautiful is your love, my sister, my bride!
How much better is your love than wine!
The fragrance of your perfumes than all kinds of spices!
11 Your lips, my bride, drip like the honeycomb.
Honey and milk are under your tongue.
The smell of your garments is like the smell of Lebanon.
12 A locked up garden is my sister, my bride;
a locked up spring,
a sealed fountain.
13 Your shoots are an orchard of pomegranates, with precious fruits:
henna with spikenard plants,
14 spikenard and saffron,
calamus and cinnamon, with every kind of incense tree;
myrrh and aloes, with all the best spices,
15 a fountain of gardens,
a well of living waters,
flowing streams from Lebanon.
Beloved
16 Awake, north wind; and come, you south!
Blow on my garden, that its spices may flow out.
Let my beloved come into his garden,
and taste his precious fruits.
Footnotes:
a. Song of Solomon 1:15 “Behold”, from “הִנֵּה”, means look at, take notice, observe, see, or gaze at. It is often used as an interjection.
Ephesians 6:1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 “Honor your father and mother,” which is the first commandment with a promise: 3 “that it may be well with you, and you may live long on the earth.” [a]
4 You fathers, don’t provoke your children to wrath, but nurture them in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
5 Servants, be obedient to those who according to the flesh are your masters, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as to Christ; 6 not in the way of service only when eyes are on you, as men pleasers; but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; 7 with good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men; 8 knowing that whatever good thing each one does, he will receive the same again from the Lord, whether he is bound or free.
9 You masters, do the same things to them, and give up threatening, knowing that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no partiality with him.
10 Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of his might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 12 For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world’s rulers of the darkness of this age, and against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, having done all, to stand. 14 Stand therefore, having the utility belt of truth buckled around your waist, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and having fitted your feet with the preparation of the Good News of peace; 16 above all, taking up the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one. 17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word[b] of God; 18 with all prayer and requests, praying at all times in the Spirit, and being watchful to this end in all perseverance and requests for all the saints: 19 on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in opening my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the Good News, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.
21 But that you also may know my affairs, how I am doing, Tychicus, the beloved brother and faithful servant in the Lord, will make known to you all things; 22 whom I have sent to you for this very purpose, that you may know our state, and that he may comfort your hearts.
23 Peace be to the brothers, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 24 Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ with incorruptible love. Amen.
Footnotes:
a. Ephesians 6:3 Deuteronomy 5:16
b. Ephesians 6:17 from Greek rhema, which means spoken word
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Harvest Ministries with Greg Laurie
P.O. Box 4000
Riverside, CA 92514-4000 United States
Phone: 1(800)821-3300
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