The Blessedness of Receiving

How to be an effective member of God’s family.

We often find ourselves on the receiving end of preaching, exhortation, and teaching calling us to embrace giving as a lifestyle and a pathway of faith. And rightly so, because a significant thrust of the Christian faith is selflessness, and there are few things that embody that better than giving or sacrifice.

I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.

Acts 20:35 (KJV)

This text has been ringing in my mind for some weeks now. I started to think closely about Receiving. Granted, the idea of Giving implies Receiving. A giver implies a receiver. But what does it mean to Receive? What is the blessing in Receiving?

And not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God.

Colossians 2:19 (KJV)

This is the system of increase in the Body [of Christ]. The ministering of nourishment. It’s a profound analogy used here. Think, for example, of your human body; that the blood vessels supplying to your kidneys decide to cut themselves off the blood flow that comes from your heart! The result would be disastrous.

Think of the blessedness, for instance, of going to church or a prayer meeting or a group Bible study ,and finding yourselves receiving and being blessed by the ministry of others.

Think of all we would have lost and will be losing if we closed ourselves from availing ourselves of the gift of others.

Generally, we give as a show of our love for others, but it also follows that we receive from them because we love them. I don’t imagine that we receive from those we despise or for whom we feel some sort of ill-affection.

We will not always have all that we need at our disposal, but we can count on the premise that if there is a heart willing to receive from God, He can occasion a giving that meets our needs.

We are called, admonished and exhorted to be givers, however, we must be humble enough to admit that sometimes our position is that of receiving.

In our anchor text, the writer was making a case for the support of the weak by the laboring, and I found it instructive that whilst the weak are urged and encouraged to contribute, they are not disadvantaged by their current state, because by being able to receive, they continue to be blessed by the generosity of the other members of the body.

So, as the scripture saith: It is more blessed to give than to receive. It’s important that we do all that we can to give and to be givers. However, let’s also make ourselves available to partake of the blessing of receiving as the Lord would have us.

It is by the ministering of nourishment that the body grows. It is more blessed to give than to receive. Thanks be to God, that in receiving we partake of the blessedness of the body. And as much is possible with us, let’s contribute to the body in every way God enables us, the body grows by that which every joint supplies in love.