Ever sit back and marvel at how crafty God is at revealing Biblical truths through the clever use of our English language? This shouldn’t surprise us given He’s the author of creation by simply speaking everything into existence.
So God’s expert usage of paradox to illustrate a revelation in our lives – I call it a Wow-moment where the Bible literally comes to life in my world — should be expected, though I always seem to be delightfully surprised at the same time. Guess that’s me just showing my humanness.
Paradox isn’t exactly an everyday word though most of us dabble with it on regular basis. A statement that contradicts itself while actually being true is a paradox. For example: Less is more; letting go in order to get back; and the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Many of these paradoxes have been thrown around so much that they are clichés.
If you want to partake of the high-dollar paradoxes, look no further than what saturates the Bible. It’s chockfull of contradictions that are God-inspired to turn on the lights in our hearts and minds to effectively live with purpose.
One of the more popular paradoxes in the Bible concludes the parable of the Workers in the Vineyard that Jesus told to kick off the 20th chapter in Matthew. Jesus’ final statement of that parable is in his paradoxical hall of fame when he said in verse 16, “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
God’s Word also contains such hallmark paradoxes as humility leads to ultimate exaltation and our strength in God occurs when we come to terms with our weaknesses.
My personal favorite Biblical paradox – and believe me, this is almost like me having to pick my favorite child because I equally love both my daughters to pieces – is just three words: Giving to receive.
This may appear to be a “duh” for anyone that’s been a Christian for some time, let alone a preacher’s kid like myself turned staff pastor at my church. After all, arguably the most popular verse in the Bible is John 3:16 … Many of us can recite that from memory as easily as tying our shoes or punching in the code to gain access into our smartphones.
John 3:16 is basically the synopsis of the Bible. A loving, merciful God gave up his only ‘begotten son’ so that a flawed human race could be saved from eternal punishment in Hell and have life everlasting through a relationship like none other with Jesus. God gave so we could receive. In turn God continues to benefit through the giving of His son in the most brutal of deaths because the plan allows Him to have a relationship with the creation that He made in His image.
A quick run through some of the Bible’s greatest stories are themed in the paradox of giving to receive.
Abraham was willing to sacrifice his most valued blessing in the form of Isaac that God had enabled his formerly barren wife, Sarah, to conceive. In return, God’s amazing multiplication blessing was bestowed upon Abraham’s lineage. Abraham breezed the test by God by preparing to offer Isaac as a burnt offering, only to be stopped right before going through with the death blow. God instantly provided a ram trapped in thickets, then guaranteed Abraham that his descendants would be multiplied and blessed. So much so that 42 generations later on Abraham’s family tree, according to Matthew 1:17, the Messiah came into the world.
How about Daniel and the lion’s den? Or the three Hebrew children and the fiery furnace? In both instances, these Biblical heroes refused to bow to the societal demands of their day by giving their all to God. Their receiving moment came in the form of them being granted supernatural protection amidst their death sentences, and in the end, they were promoted within their kingdoms and God was honored above all.
Then there’s one of the more under-the-radar stories within the Bible of the giving-to-receive paradox. Mary, the sister of Martha and the recently raised-from-the-dead Lazarus, poured an expensive bottle of perfume on Jesus’ feet to express her love to the Savior. This sacrificial anointing on Mary’s part touched Jesus so much that he noted in Mark 14:9, while scolding Judas, that her act of giving would be told throughout world. Her legacy has been forever cemented as she landed in all four Gospels of the New Testament – talk about being on the receiving end of something magnificent!
I’ve also seen this Biblical paradox take form in my life. In 2005, my wife Megan and I were dealing with the financial difficulties that come with being in the first year of marriage and buying our first home at the same time. The hidden costs of life were bombarding us at seemingly every turn. During the summer of 2005, I traveled out to Denver, Colo., with my folks – my dad is the lead pastor of our church – for the Assemblies of God national conference called General Council. Megan joined me for the conference toward the end of the week due to her job demands.
Right before flying out to the conference, we were hit with a $750 repair job for one of our vehicles, a total bummer right when you’re pumped up about a fun trip. And the car was only four years old at that point – that car needed Jesus!
The conference featured amazing services each night of the week. During those services, opportunities to give financially to different needs were presented to the large crowd that numbered around 10,000 in the Pepsi Center, home of the Denver Nuggets NBA team.
I felt compelled to give $25 the first night. The second night, I gave another $25. All the while, I’m thinking Megan is going to be thinking I’m crazy once she arrives to Denver and discovers I’ve dished out $50 given our tight finances. After all, we were already regularly tithing back home at our church and giving to our church’s mission program. I wasn’t working full time for our church back then. I was a sports journalist so there was no pressure on me to give at this national conference. Plus, with the thousands of other people there, I could’ve easily dismissed the need to give because those needy causes would most likely get their money.
But I was enduring an Abraham-like test though I didn’t realize it in the moment. The third night of the conference, still without Megan, I gave another $25 to another legitimate need. Megan arrived to the conference by the fourth and final night. It was during that fourth service that I whispered to Megan that I had felt compelled to give the previous three nights. She was totally down with it, despite the strain on our finances.
I realized once we returned home after touring the Denver area the following week that my three nights of giving had equaled $75, a tithe of the major car repair we had been hit with before I flew out for beautiful Colorado. We didn’t have an extra $750. We didn’t have even $75 left over in our budget to account for what I gave in those conference services.
Within a couple weeks of returning from Denver, Megan’s pay on her job quickly doubled … Coincidence? Of course not!
She worked at the time for a designer closet company that required her to create closets for mostly upscale homes, so sales were a big part of her job too. Megan’s pay doubled when her boss came to her and said he was going to pay her commission on top of her salary for each closet job she sold. My motivated wife thrived within those terms, selling designer closets to a myriad of homes in the Washington D.C.-Baltimore-Annapolis suburban areas.
Four years later, the downward turn in the housing industry caused the company Megan worked for to lay her off before it went out of business. But we never stopped paying our tithe or giving over and beyond that to Godly causes, and we’ve seen our financial needs miraculously tended to.
When you give to God sacrifically, He ALWAYS comes through!
I wouldn’t be where I’m at right now in my career – sports journalist turned REVIVE Youth Pastor and Ministries Director at our church – if not for learning the art of giving of my time through prayer and sacrificing my appetite through fasting. During a season of lacking satisfaction in my life in the spring of 2011, I got down to business with God like never before in my prayer and devotional life. I put prayer above doing other things in my life and fasted my lunches for a month. Boy, did I ever receive through that season of giving!
God began a dramatic transformation of giving me a passion for people inside and outside of the church like never before. He brought mentors and people of impact into my life that I would’ve never connected with in such fashion on my own.
And through the fasting, that was the beginning of me dropping about 40-50 pounds – oh, the marriage weight I had put on! And I never even thought about my fasting being a great getting-into-shape plan while doing it that month.
In fact, my current eating and heavy-water intake habits are based out of that season of prayer and fasting from over four years ago.
When Jesus fed the 5,000 men in John (there was an estimated 10,000-15,000 additional women and children that also partook that were situated away from the 5,000 in accordance with the culture of that day), a young, poor boy was willing to give up his basket of five small barley loaves and two small fish to make this popular miracle happen.
Think about it, the boy could’ve hid the basket so at least he could’ve been nourished. He knew he was among thousands of growling stomachs. But the boy gave up his basket to launch an epic miracle, as Jesus turned the unglamorous meal from the unnamed boy into the most glamorous all-you-can-eat buffet of all time.
Jesus fed thousands and thousands of people to their stomachs were content and had 12 basketfuls left over. So in giving up his basket, the boy was at the center of Jesus’ fine work plus he got to chow down on more food in the process than if he would’ve kept his basket to himself. Total win-win!
So if you’re struggling in any facet of life or dealing with frustration and heartache, now is not the time to retreat into a me-myself-and-I world.
Let this be the season you give your best to God through your time, energy, finances, relationships and resources. And then be prepared for Him to make a paradox out of your giving.
Dallas Cogle is the REVIVE Youth Pastor and Ministries Director at Calvary Grace. He and his wife, Megan, have two daughters, Riley, 6, and Carson, 3. Dallas grew up in Calvary Grace from the age of 12 on as the oldest of two preacher’s kids. His father, Pastor Tom Cogle, is still the church’s lead pastor. Dallas just made the career jump from sports journalist of nearly 16 years for Southern Maryland Newspapers to full-time staff pastor of Calvary Grace last December. Dallas led the youth ministry during most of his years as a sports journalist. He graduated from Evangel University with a degree in Broadcast-Communications in 1998 and was afforded different TV and radio opportunities during his time in journalism. Dallas’ passion is to see Calvary Grace evolve into a Southern Maryland community leader of connecting people of all ages to their God-given potential through a relationship with the Almighty.
