The Revd. Writes…

“All good gifts around us

Are sent from heaven above

Then thank the Lord, O thank the Lord

For all his love”

“We plough the fields and scatter the good seed on the land…” is one of our best-loved and most widely sung hymns. The words of the chorus neatly sum up how life is viewed from a Christian perspective. The context of life is one in which God is at the centre from which all good things come. “The seed time and the harvest, our life, our health our food…” We could add a myriad of other things from glorious sunsets to holidays, a word of wisdom from a friend, a child’s smile that melts the heart. The whole of creation and all that is in it stems from God. It is God who shares his bounty with us. Why God has chosen to share his bounty with us is a bit of a mystery but nevertheless Christians believe this to be true and are deeply grateful.

Being grateful to God has implications for the Christian lifestyle. Greed has no place in God’s Kingdom – the new society that each and every one of us is called to help build. Christian understanding has always taught that God’s bountiful goodness, manifested in love, is enough for everyone. God’s eternal plan is that there is capacity for all needs to be met and one of the ways that that is brought into being is by humankind sharing with each other the gifts and talents with which each has been endowed. God has created us in his own image. As God has shared his love with us so we are commanded to love one another, not because we must, but following the example of God himself because we want to. God gives of himself freely and so Christians, grateful to God for his blessings, share these blessings with others. “Much more to us, His children, He gives our daily bread…”

This sense of God’s generosity being shared by those who believe in God affects the Christian view of charity. Christian giving and altruistic charity differ in that for the Christian there is a fundamental understanding that what is being given is a result of what God has given first. It is this belief that has motivated missionaries down the years to go to places and to minister to people in need when others have felt less inclined to do so. Charitable donations are hugely important but are, more often than not, motivated by a sense of empathy and a sense that ‘I feel good for doing this.’ Christian giving is motivated by the theological understanding that ‘my faith makes this my duty’.

“O thank the Lord, for all his love.”

God Bless

Mark