Daily Affirmations - Day 4 - What Is This? - The Giving God
- Alisa B.
- 7 days ago
- 2 min read
Day 4: The giving God
What shall I return to the Lord for all His goodness to me? (Psalm 116:12).
O God, inspire our morning hymn
Of love and gratitude;
Oh, bless the sacrifice we bring,
Thou Source of every good.
Touched by Thy hand of love, we wake,
And rise from sweet repose;
Thy praise shall first the silence break,
Thy peace within us flows.
Thy miracle of love so sweet
Preserved us all secure;
While helpless in unconscious sleep,
Thy presence kept us pure.
’Tis blest to rise, O Lord, and join
With nature’s minstrelsy;
To hymn Thy praise at early morn,
And offer thanks to Thee.
Sweet morning is the time to pray;
How lovely and how meet,
To send our early thoughts away
Up to the mercy seat.
The glorious sun has driven far
The mystic shades of night;
So in our souls the morning star
Hath shed His wondrous light.
~ Daniel S. Warner ~ pub. 1888
Love gives because it delights in giving. It gives that it may express itself and may bless the recipient. If there be any thought of return it is only the return of love. And that is how God gives. As James puts it, He is ‘the giving God, who gives’... without any ulterior view to personal advantage, from the impulse of love alone, and having no end but our good.
Therefore it is, because of that pure, perfect love, that He delights in no recompense, but only in the payment of a heart won to His love and melted by His mercies. Therefore it is that His hand is outstretched, ‘hoping for nothing again.’ His Almighty all-sufficiency needs [nothing] from us...
But His deep heart of love desires and delights in the echo of its own tones that is evoked among the rocky hardness of our hearts, and is glad when we take the full cup of His blessings and, as we raise it to our lips, call on the name of the Lord. Is not that a great and a gracious thought of our God and of His great purpose in His mercies?
~ MacLaren’s Expositions
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