"EVERY MAN ACCORDING AS HE PURPOSETH IN HIS HEART, SO LET HIM GIVE:" Not grudgingly, for God loveth a cheerful giver. Our Lord gave His all for us, a ransom and a sacrifice. Giving His own self for us was the principle which influenced Him in eternity, which induced Him to leave heaven for earth, and which works in Him still. He urged this saying upon His disciples, so that it is probable that it became a proverbial saying among them. He has preserved it for our instruction and admonition. Receiving implies want and unfilled desires; giving supposes a possession, an honourable trust. Giving manifests a generous disposition and a concern for the good of others. It is acting like God, who created that He might give, redeemed that He might give, glorifies that He may give. It is a source of pure pleasure. Let us remember these words of the Lord Jesus when we go to His throne, and draw encouragement from them to ask for great blessings, to ask often, to ask with confidence: and let us encourage others to go to Him, assuring them that He considers it more blessed to give than to receive. Let us walk by this rule, prudently, plainly, notwithstanding discouragement.

For Meditation:
The man who marks from day to day,
In generous acts his heav'nward way,
Treads the same path the Saviour trod,
The path to glory and to God.