When Generosity Breaks the Cycle

11/25/2025

“Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap.”
— Luke 6:38 (NIV)

There’s something beautiful about the way Jesus describes generosity, not as a loss but as an overflow. Yet for many of us, giving doesn’t begin in abundance. It begins in a moment when we’re painfully aware of what we don’t have.

A pastor friend of mine told me about a man he knew who had lived most of his life closed-off and guarded. He told me that he grew up being taught that you “never let anyone get ahead of you” and you “hold tight to what’s yours.” That mindset shaped his whole adulthood. He wasn’t unkind, he was just careful, cautious, and isolated.

He went on saying that one evening, while the man was sitting alone in his workshop, he felt God whisper something he wasn’t expecting: “Try giving, just once.”

Not money.
Not possessions.
Just time.

So he did.
He volunteered to help an elderly neighbor repair a porch step. It took him an hour. He didn’t think much of it. That was until the next week when the same neighbor left homemade bread on his doorstep with a simple note: “Thank you. That meant more than you know.”

Something broke open in him.
A cycle he didn’t even realize he was trapped in. One of fear, scarcity, self-protection.

He told me, “Jeff, it wasn’t the bread that affected him. It was that he finally felt what Jesus meant by running over.”

From that moment, generosity became less about giving something away and more about becoming someone new. He found himself lighter. More joyful. More connected. More aware of God at work around him.

That’s often how Kingdom giving works. God rarely asks for what we don’t have. He asks for what we’re still holding too tightly.

And when we let go, He fills.
Pressed down.
Shaken together.
Overflowing, not just into our lap but into our life.

Action Steps
• Ask God: “What am I holding tightly that You’re asking me to release?”
• Choose one small act of generosity today, time, patience, listening, kindness.
• Pay attention to how giving shifts your heart, not just your circumstances.

Today’s Challenge
Give in a way that interrupts your normal routine. Let it stretch you just enough to feel it.

Prayer
Lord, help me trust Your Kingdom economy more than my own sense of scarcity. Loosen my grip on what You’ve given me so I may give freely, joyfully, and obediently. Fill my heart as I pour out what You place in my hands. Make my life an overflow of Your generosity. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Pastor Jeff

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