Gospel Generosity in Action
Last week at LifeConnection, we considered our core value of Generosity. In the Gospel, we find an extremely generous God who has given His only Son Jesus to die for our sins, in our place, to bring us back to Himself. Because of God’s grace in our lives, we are moved to respond in worship, giving joyfully to meet the needs of others–ultimately causing others to give glory and gratitude to God Himself. In short, God’s grace causes joyful generosity for God’s glory.
This past semester, our LifeConnection community groups worked to meet the needs of others in response to God’s grace in their lives. Here is an email from a family at LifeConnection who was the recipient of that generosity. Let it be a reminder of God’s grace in our lives. Even more, let it be a reminder of the ultimate act of Generosity shown to us in Jesus’ death on the cross, for our sins. All of LifeConnection’s generosity is simply a response to the gift given us in Jesus.
Hello all, hope you’re having a great New Year!I’m writing this email as a small gesture of gratitude for the gift that your Community Group provided to my family this Christmas. I won’t be able to adequately describe utilizing words what this gift meant/means to us…but here goes nothing!
I know that you were probably filled in on our situation over the past twelve months, so excuse me for being redundant, but its an important part of our story. This past May I lost my job due to the economy. As in one day I had a job, the next I didn’t. I was a full commission contractor, so that meant I also wouldn’t receive unemployment. The Lord was good and had already provided a job mowing lawns for the summer, so we did have some income coming in, but not enough to pay all of the bills. This led to about 4 months of bills racking up.
During that time I was able to secure my current job teaching high school English. This is a dream job and I’m so thankful to be able to be a part of it. But unfortunately we still had those 4 months of bills staring us in the face.
When your group came to talk to me in November about providing for us during Christmas it really took us by surprise. I thought to myself, “but we really don’t need anything”. And we really didn’t. God had provided for us all of the essentials…but we were living on a thin wire. We were far enough behind on our mortgage that one misstep would have sent us into foreclosure. We did have a need, but it was hard to accept that the need would be met by others rather than ourselves.
It totally blew us away when we received your gift at the Lifeco Christmas service. I know how hard it is to make a dollar, and that the Christmas season is a time that money is harder to come by than it is to spend. So on a Tuesday night in December your group gave to our needs and gave my family relief during a very stressful time of our life.
The next day is when it all started to set in how completely God provides for us…that Wednesday morning we received a letter in the mail with a check for an amount that, in conjunction with your gift, would totally catch us up…on everything. What a blessing…We gathered our kids around us right then and let them know exactly what had happened over the past year and what had happened that morning. I don’t think they understood why Jenn and I were crying, but there is one message I hope they learned that morning.
My family is fortunate in that we have a support net. My folks and Jenn’s folks would both be there if things got desperate…But so many people in this world don’t have that. There are many people that instead of getting that relief in just the nic of time, would have been kicked out of their house instead. The message that we gave our kids that morning was, “look for those people…the people who have nothing or no one…and take care of them.” We live in a broken world that is hostile to humankind…the Church was put here to be a spot of respite. Thank you for being our cup of cool water in a parched and dry land. Thank you.
Leave a Comment