Week 52 – December 22-28, 2024: Generous in Giving, Humble in Living

This week’s daily readings:

December 22-28, 2024

This week’s devotional:

Generous in Giving, Humble in Living

by Pastor Frank Albert

Scripture:

As Jesus looked up, he saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. “Truly I tell you,” he said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.” 

— Luke 21:1-4 (NIV) 

Reflection:

Throughout my young years, my mother encouraged me to appreciate the small things – little gifts of beauty in nature and the world – that reflected the goodness of God. I also experienced feeling insignificant because of the things I could not change about my family of origin that were deeply unhealthy. In time, I began to see that God’s character and truth are often expressed through the “least of these.” I could still see it in nature, but I also began to see it in the poor, the disenfranchised… all those that Jesus talks about in the Beatitudes. “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” Jesus said, “for they shall see God.” Jesus is not interested in the flashy things that catch our attention so often: the celebrity, the fancy tech, the social media influencer. He’s paying attention to those that have not much to give but give it all. 

In C.S. Lewis’s book The Great Divorce, a person from the Shadowlands makes a trip to the edge of Heaven to see what Heaven is like. There, he encounters someone he quickly assumes was a great person in their life on earth. The woman is arrayed in great robes surrounded by a huge entourage of animals honoring her. When the shadow-man asks about this obviously famous person, his guide explains that she was just the woman at the end of an insignificant lane in an insignificant village who no one really knew and whose only claim to fame was that she took in orphaned and crippled animals and nursed them back to health. Yet, she was honored above many in heaven: a great and beautiful lover of the least of these who, in the end, was not least at all herself. 

To understand the poor widow in Jesus’ parable is more than to appreciate her monetary gift; it is to understand that she did not consider her possessions as something to be possessed, but that all she had was God’s alone. In this Christmas season, let us remember that our giving should be a humble reflection of God’s character in response to all he has given us.

Prayer:

Father, teach me how to be not only generous, but also without regard for what I have or wish to keep. Whatever treasures you give me stewardship of in this world, may I never forget that it all belongs to you, and every treasure I have is nothing compared to having your Son as my Savior! Make me generous in giving and humble in living so that my reward may be in your eternal Kingdom rather than in this world. I ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen