Measure Given, Measure Received (part 9 of 9)

It is then, after all of this, that Jesus says, “Give, and it will be given to you: A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be poured into your lap.  For the measure you use will be the measure you receive” (Luke 6:38).  It is possible for reasonable observers to agree that, after this lengthy examination, in no way does this statement have anything to do with giving as it is generally considered, or as this particular verse is generally positioned?  What is it that the Creator God wanted to give His covenant people?  According to Deuteronomy, which would have been the framework for the way that the people understood their situation, God wanted to reverse the captivity and have pity on His people. 

Thinking along those Deuteronomic lines, Jesus can be heard to be effectively saying, “Look! I have set before you today life and prosperity on the one hand, and death and disaster on the other” (Deuteronomy 30:15).  Choosing the way of love and compassion was choosing the way of life rather than the way of death.  The way of death, for Israel, was that of judgment, condemnation, and lack of forgiveness.  Choosing life, which would be made possible by their trusting in their God by trusting that Jesus was the Messiah, would have their God saying to them “you will live and become numerous and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you are about to possess” (30:16b).  By this, they would truly become sons of the Most High. 

Jesus expected the covenant people of the Creator God---the people who claimed a loyal allegiance to that creative, providential, and covenant God---to give more than they could ever imagine.  They were to give love (and all that naturally attends it) where it may not have been deserved, for they had received love when it had not been deserved.  They were to do good to those who hated them, or at the least, to those that they hated, so presumed that the feeling was mutual.  They were to offer blessings to those who cursed them, or to those who represented the ongoing cursing of their God.  They were to give compassion to those that struck them.  They were to be willing to give up their possessions, even to an enemy.  They were to give the withholding of judgment.  They were to give the withholding of condemnation.  They were to give forgiveness, for they had certainly experienced all of these things through the patience and promises of their God. 

It would be through the giving of all of these things that they would come to realize just how much they had already been given.  Indeed, in that realization, a good measure would be effectively poured into their laps; and indeed, they would come to understand that loving their enemies stemmed from their love of their God (as their God loved them even though they had almost continually been His enemies).  Finally, they would realize the measure of mercy they had already received, and in turn, realize that such was the measure that they should be willing to give.