40acts: The Lent Generosity ChallengeSample

God yearns for us to experience the full riches of life with him by taking our material blessings and sharing them with others. In Luke 3:10–11 John the Baptist gives perhaps the first mention of a ‘buy one, get one free’ deal in history. His advice to share what we have with others resonates with today’s need to go against the grain.

You’ve seen the videos: fights over bargains, Black Friday riots, Christmas brawls over best-sellers. Deals don’t always bring out the best in humanity. 

Buying extra food and putting it in the foodbank box, doing a weekly shop for someone who’s come to the end of their money but not their month, or just giving away something you don’t need puts these scriptures into real, loving action. And by doing this, we help others to see that the Lord is indeed good. 

My son works as one of those people in the supermarket handing out free samples and vouchers. Every week sees a different promotion – dog food, chocolate, a new breakfast cereal – and he’s literally got the T-shirt for all of them. You’d think his days would fly by, with queues of customers taking advantage of his generosity, but not so. Fair enough, the ‘free chocolate’ days leading up to Christmas are winners, with customers practically putting on a disguise so they can turn up again and again – like Dopey wanting another kiss from Snow White. But a lot of the time, people are plain suspicious and he can’t meet either their eye or their expectations.

‘What’s the catch?’ they ask. ‘What am I being signed up to?’

Our Bible verse encourages us to ‘taste and see that the Lord is good’. As a diner might sample a mouthful of wine before committing to buying the bottle, or a customer might buy something on a promotional offer that later becomes a favourite, tasting can lead to new experiences, even life-changing ones.

Small generous acts might feel a drop in the ocean when faced with the hardships of our society, but those little drops are tasters of the heavenly realm.

Offering glimpses and tasters might seem insignificant, but what a difference a deal can make.

 Find more about today’s 40acts challenge on our blog:   

https://40acts.org.uk/act-33-big-deal/