This unlikely verse ministered to my soul this morning. Unlikely as it is the most weaponized Scripture of all the Bible. I don’t want to get into that now. Maybe next post. But for this moment. Today. My soul was encouraged.

“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.”

When you look at this verse from Luke, it is much more gentle than the Matthew account. Because here we get to see the positive.

There’s a warning for sure. Those who are judgmental and condemn others will receive that back. And it’s true. When you feel judged, you want to judge the person back. When you feel condemned by someone, you want to condemn back.

But here’s the other side. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give and it will be given to you.

I’ve see that happen again and again. A forgiving person will often be the recipient of the gift of forgiveness. A generous person will be taken care of as a loyalty has been established through their own giving.

Here’s the catch though. Here’s what I’ve observed in life. And it is important.

The person you forgive may or may not be the one who forgives you. The person you give to likely will not be the one who gives back to you.

When we forgive and when we give, it is THE LORD who repays us. It is the LORD who gives back to us through others.

If we do not understand this, we will give expecting something in return, or forgive expecting the same thing. It doesn’t work that way. The Lord will bring us the return not to those we have given to but from others.

Moving on, I do find encouragement in these verses. What we give the LORD sees. And it will come back to us not just a little bit but in abundance. It isn’t that we just forgive once but that we become forgiving people. We become generous people. We become kind and merciful people. And the love, kindness and generosity that people sense in us will come back to us.

I have a long way to grow in this. But somehow these words warm my heart.

We receive what we plant. Not just a little bit but in abundance.