What About the Change?

I mentioned yesterday that I'm teaching Sunday. The lesson is based on 2 Corinthians 8:1-15. Paul is trying to urge the Corinthians to generous giving. He starts by telling them of the very generous church in Macedonia -- "their abundant joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity of their part."

I have to admit, I wasn't very excited about this lesson. The student book begins one section with the sentence, "Second Corinthians 8 sounds something like a fundraising letter..." I did get a little excited when the word "prodigal" came up again -- third time in two day, and was defined as "generosity that is so extravagant it could be called wasteful." That, though, was the highlight of what I was reading.

I told my Sunday school class last month that God speaks to me in music, and He did it again yesterday. As I was thinking about the lesson, the song The Change by Steven Curtis Chapman popped up on my CD player:

What about the change
What about the difference
What about the grace
What about forgiveness.
What about a life that's showing
I'm undergoing the change.
Looking again at the purpose of the lesson, "To inspire generosity as a response to God's grace."

I think this lesson isn't about Paul trying to raise money for the church in Jerusalem. This lesson is about Paul's attempt to ask the people of Corinth, "What about the change?"

From another song by the same artist on a different CD, called Angel's Wish:

And someday I'll sit down with my angel friends
Up in heaven
They'll tell me about creation
And I'll tell them a story of grace.
Grace. That's what the lesson is about. We often fail to remember the "hugeness" of it all -- how incredibly wonderful grace is. How unexpected and undeserved it is. Not even angels know about grace -- He loves us enough to shower it on us, his created children.

If that is so, and if we believe it, then it ought to change us. There ought to be a difference in how we act, and what we do, and what we say. The "change" ought be reflected in our generosity and our love. I think that's what Paul might be trying to tell the Corinthians -- remember how blessed by grace you are -- and allow that grace to change you. When it does, you will see its fruit in generosity.

Images: The sky this morning at the VA and a spider-less web with dew, also this morning at the VA.