EBCLA matters because we are committed to getting God, the gospel, and being Christ’s presence on Earth

right-er.

God gives first.

“I WANT MY FOOD NOW!!!”Doesn’t know that most of what his parents do for him springs from their GENEROSITY. They don’t strictly owe it to him.

But even parents make the same mistake.Everything—even that, at times, demanding child—is from God. Created for them by God. Everything is a GIFT.

From God.

ROM 1135 “Who has ever given to God, that God should repay them?”

No one.

If all things come from God, then nobody can give anything to God in a way that obligates God to give in return.

Whatever we give to God,

God gave it to us first.

Text

In many ancient religions, gods would die without followers’ sacrifices.

To get what they needed, gods would give what humans desired.

“–Miroslave Volf, Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace, (33)

Not so with the one God, according to Paul. No sacrifice can extract anything from God, because everything given in sacrifice came from God in the first place. To give to God is to take from God’s right hand and put that very thing back

into God’s left hand.”

Wait. I’ve worked very hard. I’ve received a great deal, but I’ve achieved something too! Can’t I give to God from what I myself have attained?

Genesis 2“…When the Lord God made the earth and the heavens…no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up.”

“…for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth.”

“…and there was no one to till the ground.”

Human beings do contribute with God in the work of creation.

Genesis 2“…Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.”

“–Miroslave Volf, Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace, (34)

We work, we create, we give, but the very ability and willingness to work, along with life itself, are

gifts from God.”

Many gifts, like breath, must be given over and over for us even to exist, let alone accomplish anything.

1COR47 What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?

God gives first.