Because of your greatest need you need to give your greatest gift in order to set the law of giving and receiving into motion! Let it be an act of your deepest love and strongest faith. Give as sacrificially as God gave. God?s reward system works: Souls are being saved because God gave His best and expects to receive! God is our role model for giving and receiving!

Art of Receiving
Apostle Andre Pelser.
2004/02/07

It is more blessed to give than receive according to our Master?s inspired utterances ? but just how many people can really receive in a way that pleases the Master? We need to understand receiving the way He taught it in order to enjoy what He has to give. Many people can take, but few can receive. There is an art in receiving that is lost in modern society where everyone feels the world owes them something!
It takes humility to receive. Giving can make you proud. Giving is so gratifying that you complement yourself and remind others of what you have given them. It is so hard for self to die! But learning to receive is a humbling experience. Pride cannot receive because it never admits that it needs anything.
As a missionary I have learned to receive. It is a way of living with our family.
Without the generous giving of God?s people we could do nothing. If God does not touch the hearts of people and tell them what to give into our ministry and for our lives we would not be able to survive. It is a matter of servant hood not expecting anything in return except what God allows. It is humbling to take up offerings for the rest of your life and hope that you will make it at the end of the month! But God always has faithful people who not only give their tithes – which is the Lord?s – but have learned the blessed art of giving and have found the dividends to be out of this world! You cannot out give God! He always gives back more than you invested.
In order to rely on the generous giving of God?s people we had to learn how to receive gracefully. There is a grace in giving and there is a grace in receiving.
When you give your right hand should not know what your left hand is doing and in receiving you should receive from the Lord through the vessel He chose to bless you and be thankful so that the cycle of giving and receiving can end with thanksgiving towards the Lord who started the cycle in the first place!
My friend in Australia, Mike Wood, simply says: ?Money circulates!?
In Luke 6 Jesus taught his disciples a few principles on giving and receiving. Notice that giving and receiving is not just about money and provision. Your capacity to be able to give and receive has a lot to do with how you give and receive judgement, condemnation, forgiveness and many other facets of interaction with other people.

Luke 6
37 Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven: 38Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.

Didomi in Greek describes the act of giving something to someone else?s advantage. It also indicates that you give something ?forth? from one?s self; in other words, you let it go ? no strings attached! You cannot tell that person what to do with the gift you have given. Once you have given, it belongs to someone else and they can do with it what they want to. There is no prescribed giving involved here. You commission your gift away from yourself to go and be a blessing to someone else.

Metron is the Greek word Luke uses to explain the good measure used to receive the rewards of your giving. It is a receptacle for receiving and a vessel determining the quantity of things. It also speaks of a measuring rod or the standard by which things are measured. There is a limit to what you can receive. Your metron determines it. Your metron determines the extent of what you can receive. There is a set portion that belongs to you. It is called your metron.

The way you metreo others is the extent of your metron. How you judge others, how you measure them, how you estimate them according to the standard you set for them ? that is how you will be repaid and rewarded ? with the same metron! The space or distance you measure out for others according to your judgement and your own standards determines your metron. In the same way you metreo others it will be anitmetreo back to you! Anti is a prefix telling you the reason why. Because you used that measure to judge others, that same measure will be used for you when it is time for you to receive. That is God?s law of giving and receiving in any area of your life. We have to learn this principle before anything will change in our giving and receiving.

Bosom (Greek: ?kolpos?) normally refers to the front part of the upper body between the arms but here in this context it more specifically indicates the bosom of a garment: the hollow part of a loose garment above the girdle or sash around the waist used to carry things in.

There are three levels of receiving:
Pressed down is piezo in Greek and it means pressed down. Piazo is to take hold of, to take by force or to capture. It is another form of biazo which means to take by force or to suffer violence. (Remember Jesus explained that up to the time of John the Baptism the kingdom of God suffered violence and violent men took it by force ? but since the arrival of the Son of God on the scene there are different ways to lay hold of the kingdom: you can simply receive it as well). ?Bios? in Greek means to live extensively in great wealth that will sustain you.

Shaken together in Greek is ?Salueo? and that word explains the shaking of a measure in order to pack it more tightly together. It is the motion caused by strong winds that shakes things to see what can be shaken and what remains. It refers to agitation of mind and to disturb ones happy state. This is interesting: in order to have more than your share at the moment you have to accept the fact that you will be shaken, perhaps agitated in mind and disturb in your happy state! No wonder people say ?No!? when God wants to give them a bit more! In order to fill your piezo pouch of your garment of righteousness you can expect some shaking to happen before the increase comes!

Overflowing in Greek is ?huperekchuno? and it means to pour out beyond measure. This is an amazing image: there is more than you can store! Your measure cannot even contain the blessings God is about to pour out! ?Huper? is exceeding abundantly and ?ekcheo? is to pour out, to shed abroad or to distribute. ?Ek? indicates the point of origin: there is an exact place and time when this running over motion actually begins! At the point of stretching your own measure to give to others God is actually releasing the running over measure on your behalf! At exactly the same time that you give extensively to another, God opens up the third level of his treasure to enhance your measure! He increases your capacity as you stretch yourself out to give to his work, to those who have need, to those who ask for help to do God?s work!

The New American Standard version:
35 ?But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men. 36 ?Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. 37 ?And do not judge and you will not be judged; and do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; pardon, and you will be pardoned. 38 ?Give, and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, they will pour into your lap.