Give Back with Love || Jesus’ Return Policy #4 (FINALE)

Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full – press down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. (Luke 6:38)

I hear this verse a lot during the offering collection at church. It’s made me wonder what my return will be like. This is imagery painted by Jesus. It brought to my mind scooping flour when making cookies or sweets. You might press it down, shake the excess off, or dump the overflowing scoop into your batter or dough when you scoop it. The results of it come back to you in a sweet treat. Jesus is trying to teach us his return policy in a similar way. 

Throughout this series, I’ve taken apart each step in the return policy to see what it means and how the concept is shown in other parts of the Bible. Let’s get into the finale of our “Jesus’ Return Policy” series and discuss how our gifts get poured into our lap. 

“Pour” is the Greek word didómi (did’-o-mee), which means to give. This is a common word used 416 times. “Lap” is the Greek word kolpos (kol’-pos), which means bosom. This word is only used six times. It refers to the upper part of the chest where a garment naturally folds to form a pocket. It’s also synonymous with intimacy. It’s giving something back intimately. It doesn’t have anything to do with sex. It refers to a close friendship. It refers to a private, cozy atmosphere. Jesus is giving these gifts back to us because of the relationship we have with him. 

Luke 16:22-23

22 “Finally, the poor man died and was carried by the angels to sit beside Abraham at the heavenly banquet. The rich man also died and was buried, 

23 and he went to the place of the dead. There, in torment, he saw Abraham in the far distance with Lazarus at his side. 

Now, it’s worth pointing out that this is not the Lazarus Jesus rose from the dead. Lazarus was a common name at this time. 

This section is in the middle of the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. Jesus told this story to express a heavenly meaning. I’m going to do my best to synopsize this. 

There was a rich man who dressed in rich clothes and lived in luxury. Lazarus was poor and lying at the rich man’s gate, hoping to get some of the rich man’s riches. He would lay there, and dogs would come and lick his open sores (Gross, but his audience would’ve connected with it quickly).

The poor man died and got to sit next to Abraham, while the rich man died and went to hell. The rich man tried to reason with Abraham to get him to heaven, but it wouldn’t happen. You read about the reasons why it would work in Luke 12:24-31. 

Who’s by your side? Are you the rich man who had all kinds of resources to get him through life? Are you Lazarus, who had nothing and hoped to have just a piece of what the rich man has? The rich man didn’t have faith, so he accrued so many resources. Lazarus had nothing but hope and faith to get a peace of what the rich man had. 

Matthew 8:10-12

10 When Jesus heard this, he was amazed. Turning to those who were following him, he said, “I tell you the truth, I haven’t seen faith like this in all Israel!” 

11 And I tell you this, that many Gentiles will come from all over the world – from the east and west – and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at the feast in the Kingdom of Heaven. 

12 But many Israelites – those for whom the Kingdom was prepared – will be thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 

Jesus told the crowd that many religious Jews who should be in the Kingdom would be excluded because of their lack of faith. They were so focused on their religious traditions that they couldn’t lean on the Christian beliefs solely by faith. Jesus came to fulfill the law, meaning he came to remove the need to go solely by the law to have a relationship with God. 

We need to be careful to not become so set in our ways that we think we know all about God. God doesn’t fit into a box, nor can we mold God to only operate in our ways. God exists beyond our comprehension. It’s why Proverbs tells us to not lean on our knowledge but God’s. It’s why God says in Isaiah that his thoughts are nothing like ours, and his ways are far beyond ours. It’s hard to wrap our minds around what God can truly do. 

Faithful people of God gathering to eat with Jesus was mind-blowing to them. The Jews should’ve known that his blessings would be for all when the Messiah came. This message shocked them because they were too caught up in themselves. How often are we so caught up in what’s happening in our lives that we tend to forget about the others around us? There’s a balance to all of this, but if we’re so caught up in ourselves that we don’t think of others and what our actions are doing to them, then we lose what God calls us to do. 

Matthew shares this with us to emphasize this universal theme: Jesus’ message is for everyone. 

The Old Testament prophets knew this, but many Jewish leaders in the time of Jesus chose to ignore it. I find this fascinating. The prophets knew that Jesus would be for all people. Not just for the Israelites. Not just for the Jewish people. Not for the Gentile audience. For everyone. The Jewish leaders focused so heavily on the Torah that it overshadowed anything about the Messiah coming. Each person must accept or reject the Bible’s words to gain eternal life. There’s no ability to become a part of God’s Kingdom based on heritage. I heard it said recently that getting into heaven isn’t based on your parents or grandparents’ beliefs but on your own choice. How intimate of a choice is that for Jesus to give? 

John 1:18 

18 No one has ever seen God. But the unique One, who is himself God, is near to the Father’s heart. He has revealed God to us. 

God communicated through various people in the Old Testament. It was typically the prophets who received specific messages from God. No one ever saw him. They saw his glory but not his form. Imagine seeing someone’s glory but not their form. I can’t even picture a situation where this could happen. It could be like seeing someone’s shadow, but inverse. God’s glory is light, while our shadows are dark. I don’t know. Let me know your thoughts on this. 

Jesus is both God and the Father’s unique Son. In him, God revealed his nature and essence in a way we can see and touch. Getting the tangibility to understand something is something we don’t acknowledge often. Seeing tangible results helps me understand if something works or not. Seeing math problems broken down visually to understand the process benefits me. Seeing Jesus on earth emulate what it means to be a child of God is a great way to understand God’s true nature. 

Colossians 1:15-16

15 Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, 

16 for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on the earth. He made the things we can see and things we can’t, such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him. 

The Colossian church held many misconceptions about Jesus that Paul needed to refute.

They said that God wouldn’t have come to earth as Jesus, a true human being in a bodily form, because they believed that only what is spiritual is good and what is physical, including the body, is evil. Paul said that Jesus, God in the flesh, is the creator of heaven and earth. Jesus wasn’t just human. He was fully God AND fully human. Talk about the best of both worlds. 

They believed God did not create the world because he would not have created evil. Paul said that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh and the creator of heaven and earth. I’ve talked before about the good wouldn’t feel good if we didn’t know the bad. 

They said Christ was not the unique Son of God but one of many intermediaries between God and humanity. Paul explained that Christ existed before anything else and is the firstborn of those resurrected. 

They refused to see Jesus as the source of salvation, insisting that people could find God only through special and secret knowledge. Paul openly proclaimed the way of salvation was to be through Christ alone. 

Overall, we’re seeing that Jesus isn’t only equal with God, but is God. As the visible image of the invisible God, he is the exact representation of God. He reflects God and reveals God to us; as supreme (leader) over all creation, he has all the priority and authority of the firstborn prince in a king’s household. (we’ll talk about the firstborn rights in our next series). Jesus came from heaven, not the dust of the earth like Adam. He rules as Lord over everything. He is completely holy and has the authority to judge the world. 

Since Jesus created all and rules over all, including the spiritual realm (I might do a series on this, too), we should believe in the deity of Jesus. Without this belief, our faith becomes empty, misdirected, and meaningless. We must oppose the belief that Jesus was just a prophet or a teacher, but he was all that and more! 

False teachers would have taught that the physical world was evil and that God himself wouldn’t create it. They reasoned that if Jesus was God, he would be in charge of only the spiritual realm. Paul shared that all the thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities of both the spiritual and physical words were created by and are under Jesus’ authority. This includes both the government on earth and the spiritual realm. 

What to do with this information? Know that God intimately gave us Jesus to show us how to be like God and live as we were created to be. He gave the world a sacrifice that allowed us to have a bold and intimate relationship with him. This same type of intimate giving is what we see Jesus give back to us through our gifts. We can continue to share the message of Jesus to everyone. We can help others by giving. We can be the blessing that Jesus is to us. 

I hope you’ve really enjoyed this series! I’ve learned a lot from it and have a greater understanding of what this verse says when we use it during our offering collection. Our next series will begin next Tuesday, as I revisit an old popular series called “Jacob’s Family Tree.” I want to give it my modern spin with the new things I’ve learned and how I’ve written these blogs. Until then, stay blessed.