As soon as a toddler is old enough to grasp their first toy, a new word quickly crosses their lips…mine. Marge and I used to work with the toddlers class many years ago in church and the vivid memories still linger (and burn). Fifteen three year old’s in a small room with about 12 toys. As soon as the kids would enter the room, they would all make a mad dash for a toy and then cling to it like Rose clung to that wooden door thingy in Titanic. (Yes, there was room for Jack.) Those kids would grasp those toys with a G.I. Joe like kung fu grip and just dare another human to try and take it. If there’s ever been quick easy proof of a sin nature born into every human, watch toddlers play together. The concept of sharing might as well be calculus to a three year old. In fact, now that I mention it, sharing seems to be quite foreign to most adults today as well, dare I say it…toilet paper.
To better understand sharing, let’s first look at its polar opposite, selfishness. Folks, if I were to take a stab at the root of all of our sin nature, it would firmly lie here. Selfish. Egotistic. Self-centered. Stingy. Greedy. Tight-fisted. To better understand humans, you have to fully understand that we are selfish, greedy creatures. We want it all for oursleves and we want to keep it all for oursleves, lest we might not have enough. But friends, God’s Word could not be more opposite of this statement. God is gracious, giving more than He has to. God is an abundant giver, giving much more to us than we deserve. God is externally focused, thinking about the lives He created well before He thinks of Himself. God thinks about abundantly blessing others before He thinks about keeping ever more for Himself. You see, God understands where the blessings are. And it is these very abundant blessings that God wants us to enjoy. God realizes that by being generous to others and sharing what He has first given us, we can then and only then, bask in the glorious blessings that God has waiting for us. You see, God is a generous, sharing God, it’s who He is. And if you have Jesus in your heart, then you are too. Sharing is caring. It’s caring for others like God cares for you.
“Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” Luke 6:38
“The generous will themselves be blessed, for they share their food with the poor.” Proverbs 22:9
“One person gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty. A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.” Proverbs 11:24-25
“If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.” 1 John 3:16-19
Today in Deuteronomy chapter 24 we see quite the odd command from God. If not careful, it can easily be dismissed as irrelevant to us today in 2020. In order to fully grasp it, I want you to take a trip with me on the trolley to Mr. Roger’s neighborhood of make-believe.
Imagine that you own a large field. The dimensions of this field are 2,600 feet by 2,600 feet, perfectly square. On this land you plant corn. You till the soil, fertilize it, plow it, and then sow your corn seed. The Lord has blessed you with fertile soil, abundant rain and bountiful sunshine and before you know it, tiny green leaves start to pierce the surface. 80 days later you admire the tall, strong green stalks that sway across the large field. It’s time to harvest. As you do, your tractor works feverishly to collect the corn, but your tractor cannot turn sharp enough to get into the corners. You notice that there is a lot of corn left in the four corners of your field. Also, you notice that a few stalks of corn were missed every 30 feet or so. That’s a lot of missed corn if you add it all up, what to do? Listen to what God commands on this very subject and how it relates to our topic today, sharing and showing generosity to others.
“When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.” Deut 24:19
“'When you reap the harvest of your land, moreover, you shall not reap to the very corners of your field nor gather the gleaning of your harvest; you are to leave them for the needy and the alien. I am the LORD your God.'" Lev 23:22
Folks, welcome to the wide world of gleaning. God’s way of providing food for the poor, hungry, widows and orphans and also of providing blessings to the hearts of the generous. You will see gleaning all throughout the OT, especially in the great little book of Ruth where it plays a major part. After reading the story of Ruth, you’ll see that if Boaz had not been obedient to God’s commands on gleaning, He and Ruth never would have met, fallen in love and had little Obed who was the father of Jesse, who was the father of David, of whom all were in the lineage of our Lord Jesus Christ. Pretty powerful stuff!
God commanded gleaning for many reasons.
1) It blessed those that were obedient to His law. God doesn’t want us to give and be generous to others because He wants us to have less or simply give away our stuff, He knows that the heart that gives will then be ready to fully receive His abundant blessings. At the core of everything, God just wants to bless us. His commands to us are the ways in which we can receive those blessings. Out of obedience to God comes the rich blessings of God. The owners of the fields left behind the remnants of corn, wheat, grapes and olives and as a result they were blessed by God.
2) It blessed those in need. God gives not to some but all. He gave you the land to plant the corn and He blessed you with the tractor to harvest it. As a result of the bountiful harvest He is not only blessing you, but blessing others. God grew that corn not to make you rich and others poor, but to bless all with what comes from His hands. As a result of the corn you grew, the poor, widowed, orphaned and foreigners can all eat. God’s blessings are not meant to be horded by a few but out of obedience to Him, shared with those in need.
3) It was God’s natural welfare system. In the O.T., God didn’t have welfare checks. He didn’t simply give the poor and the needy a check every month. He gave them food and He gave it to them through the process of gleaning. If you wanted to eat, you got up, got dressed and went out and gleaned. This is the very reason that Ruth met Boaz. She was gleaning from his field. She was getting busy and working to provide food for her family in any way she could. She was not simply standing at the welfare office asking for money. You see, if you help yourself, God will help you also. Through the process of gleaning, God built a very effective, very productive welfare system.
Folks, how are you harvesting your corn today? Are you reaping every corner and every sheaf and then picking up every last kernel and securely tucking it away in your barn, or are you leaving some behind? The little that you leave behind can make a big difference. It can help others that God intended for you to help. It can change your heart as you follow God in obedience, allowing your heart to become more like His. Folks, God has it all figured out, all we have to do is follow His Word in obedience.
Today, bless others before you seek to be blessed. Today, give more than you expect to receive. Today, look at the abundance that God has given you not as all your own, but as being provided to you by God so that you can bless others. And as you allow others to glean from your field, you will be blessed in ways that will change your life as you see the very heart of God revealed to you.
Be blessed as you give away your corn today.
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