Frankly, Scarlet, I Give a Gift. (Part II)

December 27th, 2006

Frankly, Scarlet, I Give a Gift. (Part II)

Matthew 5:38-42
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.”

Matthew 5:42 Give: The Greek word is didōmi which means to give. That is on the most basic meaning. Going deeper, it means to give something to someone of one’s own accord to give one something, to his advantage. It also means to bestow a gift. Here’s a list of some other meanings:

• To grant, give to one asking, let have


• To supply, furnish, necessary things


• To give over, deliver by reaching out, extend, present


• To deliver by a writing


• To give over to one’s care, entrust, commit


• Something to be administered


• To give or commit to some one something to be religiously observed


• To give what is due or obligatory, to pay: wages or reward


• To furnish, endue

There is plenty more. I could give something to someone when they ask for it, and it would be to my advantage. Maybe. I really have a hard time wrapping my mind around that one. How can it be to my advantage to give to someone who is bold enough to ask? I can spout off a truck load of “what-ifs” on this one, but to be honest with you, these generally don’t happen (IE: Someone running up to ask for a house, car, $1,000 dollars, etc.).

I wouldn’t really know what to do in those situations, but I do understand that the Bible says to get advice and many advisors make victory sure. If someone asks for your car, get advice first (and not from me, please! I don’t know the answer to that one.). But here is something that I have figured out, at least from this passage and the Greek background. I think of it this way, have I not struck the cheek of Christ on both his right AND left? I have taken his cloak and tunic. I’ve made him walk more than two miles. The amazing thing about this whole picture: I’m forgiven.

There’s still more, though. If God has put up with my disaster that I call a life, and still has a heart to love me in spite of me, wouldn’t it be at least the slightest bit possible that he might knock that last verse down to help me out? “Give to the one who asks you…” is what it says. And as I mention time after time in my blog, generally to remind myself, is that if God is willing to give to me, and I am supposed to imitate God, then I would most definitely have to have a heart to give to others.

• Forgive as you want to be forgiven.


• Love as you want to be loved.


• Give as you want to be given to.

Maybe this makes sense, maybe it doesn’t. It makes sense to me. The real kicker is to accomplish these things without expecting anything in return. It’s like the stock market, you don’t know if the rewards are going to come back or not. You can put money in a broken piggy bank and later there’s not even money on the floor. The real heart is the effort. No one knows for sure if the pink pig is going to break, but someone has to invest in it, nurture it, believing in it, and if things work out, it works out. But you won’t know unless you try, as the saying goes.

Matthew 6:1-4
“Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.”

“So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”

This giving is a benevolence, which is a giving to the poor and needy. It’s a different Greek word, eleēmosunē, meaning charity, pity, and mercy toward those in need. And even though it is a completely different word in Greek, it is the same in English. A part of me wants to combine the definitions in this case. It would make sense. The first says to give what is due. The second says that giving to the poor should be done in secret. It makes sense to me to put them together in saying, Give to the poor what is due them in secret. Whether it be money, material items, or food, it would be best to be done anonymously, that is if heavenly wages is the pay dirt one seeks. Johnny Out.

Frankly, Scarlet, I Give a Gift

December 26th, 2006

Frankly, Scarlet, I Give a Gift.

Genesis 32:1-21
Jacob also went on his way, and the angels of God met him. When Jacob saw them, he said, “This is the camp of God!” So he named that place Mahanaim.

Jacob sent messengers ahead of him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the country of Edom. He instructed them: “This is what you are to say to my master Esau: ‘Your servant Jacob says, I have been staying with Laban and have remained there till now. I have cattle and donkeys, sheep and goats, menservants and maidservants. Now I am sending this message to my lord, that I may find favor in your eyes.’”

When the messengers returned to Jacob, they said, “We went to your brother Esau, and now he is coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him.”

In great fear and distress Jacob divided the people who were with him into two groups, and the flocks and herds and camels as well. He thought, “If Esau comes and attacks one group, the group that is left may escape.”

Then Jacob prayed, “O God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, O LORD, who said to me, 'Go back to your country and your relatives, and I will make you prosper,' I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant. I had only my staff when I crossed this Jordan, but now I have become two groups. Save me, I pray, from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid he will come and attack me, and also the mothers with their children. But you have said, 'I will surely make you prosper and will make your descendants like the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted.’”

He spent the night there, and from what he had with him he selected a gift for his brother Esau: two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, thirty female camels with their young, forty cows and ten bulls, and twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys. He put them in the care of his servants, each herd by itself, and said to his servants, “Go ahead of me, and keep some space between the herds.”

He instructed the one in the lead: “When my brother Esau meets you and asks, ‘To whom do you belong, and where are you going, and who owns all these animals in front of you?’ then you are to say, ‘They belong to your servant Jacob. They are a gift sent to my lord Esau, and he is coming behind us.’”

He also instructed the second, the third and all the others who followed the herds: “You are to say the same thing to Esau when you meet him. And be sure to say, ‘Your servant Jacob is coming behind us.’” For he thought, “I will pacify him with these gifts I am sending on ahead; later, when I see him, perhaps he will receive me.” So Jacob’s gifts went on ahead of him, but he himself spent the night in the camp.

*Interesting*

Genesis 43:1-14
Now the famine was still severe in the land. So when they had eaten all the grain they had brought from Egypt, their father said to them, “Go back and buy us a little more food.”

But Judah said to him, “The man warned us solemnly, ‘You will not see my face again unless your brother is with you.’ If you will send our brother along with us, we will go down and buy food for you. But if you will not send him, we will not go down, because the man said to us, 'You will not see my face again unless your brother is with you.’”

Israel asked, “Why did you bring this trouble on me by telling the man you had another brother?”

They replied, “The man questioned us closely about ourselves and our family. ‘Is your father still living?’ he asked us. ‘Do you have another brother?’ We simply answered his questions. How were we to know he would say, ‘Bring your brother down here’?”

Then Judah said to Israel his father, “Send the boy along with me and we will go at once, so that we and you and our children may live and not die. I myself will guarantee his safety; you can hold me personally responsible for him. If I do not bring him back to you and set him here before you, I will bear the blame before you all my life. As it is, if we had not delayed, we could have gone and returned twice.”

Then their father Israel said to them, “If it must be, then do this: Put some of the best products of the land in your bags and take them down to the man as a gift… a little balm and a little honey, some spices and myrrh, some pistachio nuts and almonds. Take double the amount of silver with you, for you must return the silver that was put back into the mouths of your sacks. Perhaps it was a mistake. Take your brother also and go back to the man at once. And may God Almighty grant you mercy before the man so that he will let your other brother and Benjamin come back with you. As for me, if I am bereaved, I am bereaved.”

***Interesting still***

Esau didn’t forgive Jacob, which means ‘deceiver’. His name changes to Israel, which means ‘struggles with God’. But the wrongful party or group sends gifts to make amends. It works for Israel in both circumstances.

Tuesday, July 26th

Well, here I am again with my entry. I find with doing this blog comes all sorts of thoughts and feelings about it. One is the thought "WOW, I am going to be held accountable for my quiet times." Then another thought is "wow, I an GOING to be held accountable for my quiet times." But, as I have now done this for, I guess about two weeks now, I have seen another thing come into play. I am having some really DEEP quiet times. I am really getting a lot out of them. If there is anyone out there reading this, you know - great, let me know. If not, well I am still getting a lot out of this for myself, and I think that is probably the best thing for me and my relationship with God, and that is what really matters.

Anyway, on to what I learned today.

Contempt. Con·tempt. noun. meaning:

• The feeling or attitude of regarding someone or something as inferior, base, or worthless; scorn.
• The state of being despised or dishonored; disgrace.
• Open disrespect or willful disobedience of the authority of a court of law or legislative body.

There is so much more that I could have "bold-de-sized" (that is a johnny-ism) in there, but I thought I would stop before the whole thing was high-lighted. I saw this word and thought "how have I done this to God?" And then this scripture came to mind:

Matthew 25:31-46
"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'

"They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'

"He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'

"Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."

So my thought is this... what I have done to any of my friends, co-workers, brothers and sisters in the church, and family - whether it be an attitude of "well, gosh, I knew that, you must be stupid for not knowing that," or anything of the like, that's something I will have to answer to God about when I knock on his door. AND, it goes further. What about those people who I see on the street, homeless? Broken down car on the side of the road? Whatever the situation may be, if there is any attitude about it, I need to repent and get that out of my character. Sometimes, going to dictionary.com can be so convicting to see the TRUE meaning of words. So, in conclusion, whatever I do to someone who isn't wearing a white robe, sandals, long beard (A-LA-SISTINE CHAPEL), well, I might as well be. That's how God looks at it. I got this all from a defination, how about that.

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