This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of the Lord’s people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God … Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!

2 Corinthians 9:12, 15

He was his only son, and he loved him to death. They had never been separated, but that was to change in a crude way. A people in a faraway country needed a rescue. They were not particularly lovable, but he loved them anyhow. A terrible bully and oppressor had made their lives hell, and that had to change. True to their nature, they refused to accept his help. They said all manner of things against him, and finally plotted his assassination. To humiliate him, they planned the worst kind of death for him, on an elevated location where everyone could see his nakedness. And to worsen his pain, they found one of his own friends to deliver him on a silver platter. At his trial, nobody came to his aid. His friends, who swore to die with him, all deserted him. The very people he had come to rescue shouted for his death. And so he was condemned to die the most excruciating and humiliating death ever known – death on a wooden plank, with his ribs stretched to the point of breaking, and blood oozing all over his body. He cried in agony, and longed for water to quench his thirst, but he could not get any. Yet, he forgave his murderers. Didn’t his father hear his cry of pain and agony? Didn’t he care for him anymore?

Yes, the father cared, but that was the way he had chosen to demonstrate his unfathomable love for the very people who were killing his son. It was the way he had planned their salvation. The father saw and grieved over the son. He despised the filth of the people upon his son. For the first time in eternity, He turned his face from his son. In anguish, the son cried out, demanding why his father had forsaken him. Finally, he died, humiliated and shamed. He died bearing the curse of the people who killed him. But some days later, he rose from the dead and went back to his father. He had freed the people from oppression and death.

            That’s the indescribable gift of God’s grace revealed in John 3:16. It’s the story of God’s gift of eternal life to the world through Jesus (Col. 1:13, 14). It is a gift that causes thanksgiving to God from believers of Jesus. It is the kind of giving God prescribes for us. It’s unforced and unrestrained – a kind of giving that causes people to thank God and praise Him for our obedience and generosity (2Cor 9:12-13). Not only that, it is a kind of giving that causes people to pray for the giver, “because of the surpassing grace God has given you” (14). It is the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ (13). It is called, grace giving, and God encourages us to excel in it (8:7).

            So, does your giving incite thanksgiving to God for His “indescribable gift” to you in Christ Jesus? (9:15).