Collecting the Lord’s Bounty

2 Corinthians 9 verses 6 to 8

‘Now take note here – the man who sows sparingly, sparingly too shall reap, and the man who sows on terms of largess, on terms of largess shall reap; the full willing gift shall be met by the like from the Lord. Each just as he has purposed in his heart, not on a mechanical scale; it must be absolutely voluntary, as between the man and his Lord; it must not be under pain or under pressure (lit. ‘out of’; resulting from the pain of reproach, or pressure, necessity, of mere comme-il-faut); for a glad giver our God loves. But there is another side, too; the God who asks is also the God who gives; our God is able to make all grace overflow to you, so to act to you in His free favour, that its gifts, of what sort, as there is need, shall be more than equal to the demand, so that having in all things always all sufficiency you, in your turn, may flow over, passing on your blessings in loving beneficence, to all good works’. (Moule’s extended paraphrase of 2 Corinthians 9 verses 6 to 8.)

Here is a golden verse to be weighed and used. To be weighed in a daily reaffirmation and recollection of our faith in the person of the great Lord of all grace. See how heavily freighted is this verse with every possible gift of grace: ‘all grace’, ‘in all things’, ‘all sufficiency’, ‘to all good works’. The verse is also to be used to claim daily, in the name of the same Lord, the supply of grace we need, wherever we may be and whatever may be the outward circumstances in which we find ourselves placed. The Greek word for sufficiency is literally ‘such a supply on the spot as to be independent of externals’.

So, then, let the Christian daily renew his vows in the Lord of all grace in all things, for all sufficiency, unto all good works. And let him make it a personal credo such as follows:

I believe

I believe in the Name of the Son of God.
Therefore I am in Him, having redemption through His blood,
And life, by His Spirit.
And He is in me, and all fullness is in Him.
To Him I belong, by purchase, conquest and self-surrender.
To me He belongs, for all my hourly need.
There is no cloud between my Lord and me.
There is no difficulty, inward or outward,
which He is not prepared to meet in me today.
The Lord is my Keeper. Amen.

An extract from The Second Epistle to the Corinthians, pages 92-93. by HANDLEY C. G. MOULE, Pickering and Inglis Ltd, 1962.