Open Hands

Home for Christmas Week 1 – Open Hands

Scarcity: deficiency in quantity or number compared with the demand : not plentiful or abundant

Psalm 50:9-12 I have no need of a bull from your stall or of goats from your pens, for every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird in the mountains, and the insects in the fields are mine. If I were hungry I would not tell you, for the world is mine, and all that is in it. Open-handed living =

1. Surrender “Hold everything in your hands lightly, otherwise it hurts when God pries your fingers open.” ― Corrie Ten Boom

Ecclesiastes 7:10 Do not say, “Why were the old days better than these?” For it is not wise to ask such questions.

2. Generosity

Deuteronomy 15:7-8 If among you, one of your brothers should become poor, in any of your towns within your land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be.

Luke 6:37-38 “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.”

2 Corinthians 9:6-8 The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.