God's Very Nature Shows that He's a Giving God

God gives because giving flows from who he is. John writes that anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love (1 John 4:7-8). Love gives. It shares. It provides for others at cost to itself. This isn't just something God does occasionally when he feels generous. Giving is woven into his eternal nature.

We see this within the Trinity itself. Before creation, before time began, the Father loved the Son. Jesus spoke of the glory that I had with you before the world existed (John 17:5). The Father gave this glory to the Son. The Son loves the Father and does what pleases him (John 14:31). The Father gives all things into the Son's hand (John 3:35). This divine generosity existed before the universe came into being. God didn't start giving when he made the world. He has always been the Giving One.

God's Generosity in Creating and Sustaining the World

When God created the universe, he shared what belonged to him alone. The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein (Psalm 24:1). Everything belongs to him by right, yet he fills the earth with creatures and gives them the resources they need to live. He could have kept it all to himself. Instead, he scattered his generosity across creation.

God gave humanity something unique. He made us in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them (Genesis 1:27). No other creature bears this distinction. God shared his image with us, marking us as special among everything he made.

Even after Adam and Eve rebelled against him, God continued giving. He made clothes for them (Genesis 3:21) when their sin left them exposed and ashamed. Throughout the Old Testament, God extended salvation to one person after another: Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David. Each time, he gave what they could never earn.

How Sin Corrupts Our Giving

Sin twists our hearts away from generous giving. The story of Cain and Abel shows this early. Both brothers brought offerings to God, but the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard (Genesis 4:4-5). The problem wasn't what Cain brought. The problem was his heart. Sin makes us give for the wrong reasons, from the wrong motives, with the wrong attitude. We give to be noticed or to ease our conscience or to manipulate God into blessing us. True generosity becomes almost impossible without grace.

The Ultimate Gift

God's greatest gift came when he gave his Son. John wrote that God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16). This wasn't a small sacrifice. This wasn't God giving from his abundance while keeping what he valued most. He gave what he loved most to save people who hated him.

Paul wrote about this personally: Christ loved me and gave himself for me (Galatians 2:20). John explained that in this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 John 4:10). We didn't earn this gift. We didn't deserve it. We couldn't have asked for it because we didn't even know we needed it. God gave his Son to accomplish what we could never accomplish for ourselves.

God continues giving to his people. He promises to rejoice over them like a bridegroom rejoices over his bride (Isaiah 62:5). He will quiet them with his love and exult over them with loud singing (Zephaniah 3:17). He will dwell with them in a new heaven and new earth where death and sorrow disappear (Revelation 21:1-3, 6). These promises stretch from now into eternity.

Understanding God's generosity changes us. When we grasp how much he has given, we stop clutching what we have. The person who has received everything from God can afford to be generous with others. The hopeless find reason to share. The proud discover humility. The fearful learn freedom. God's giving nature transforms us into people who give because we have been given to so lavishly.