https://odb.org/2026/03/02/refreshing-generosity
Proverbs 11:24–25 (NIV): 24 One person gives freely, yet gains even more;
another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty. 25 A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.
An auditorium full of medical students at Albert Einstein College of Medicine listened intently as ninety-year-old Ruth Gottesman spoke. As she concluded, Ruth announced—to the students’ gasps, cheers, and pandemonium—that she was donating $1 billion so they could finish their education tuition free. This is the largest donation ever given to a medical school. Yet in the interviews that followed, you would have thought that Gottesman was the one receiving the gift. She expressed joy, delight, and honor to be able to give her money away. Proverbs tells us that this is how generosity works. The one who “gives freely,” far from being left diminished or bereft, finds blessings they hadn’t anticipated (11:24). (Winn Collier, Our Daily Bread 2nd March 2026)
Just like to glorify the LORD our God that we flew off from KLIA via an Emirates flight on Friday 6.30 evening KL time and after an 8-hour flight landed in Dubai for a 5-hour layover. We then boarded the connecting flight to London Heathrow (LHR) and landed safely in LHR at 6.45 am (UK time) to the news of the US and Israel having attacked Iran and Iran countering with missiles towards US bases and allies in the Gulf including the Dubai International Airport! We missed the missiles but more importantly we were not caught stranded in Dubai! Praise the Lord indeed! God was good to us! We usually take a past or near midnight flight to LHR but this time we somehow booked an earlier flight and those 6 hours could have saved us from being stuck in Dubai in the midst of the war crossfire.
Getting back to the topic at hand on generosity, an oft-repeated topic in these blog pages. Nevertheless it will never go stale or outdated. This is because the Kingdom of God, in my mind, is all about the generosity of God. God in His grace has been generous to us with His abundant grace, mercy and love. Picking us up in our lives when we least deserve Him. Beyond the principle that we should repay God for being generous to us for sending Jesus to die for our sins that we do not perish but have life everlasting (per John 3:16), there is a spiritual principle at play that as we give, we will receive. Giving doesn’t deplete but increases. Crazy but true!
It is a spiritual principle where its reality has been exploited by the “properity gospel crowd” to give to God in order to have a breakthrough out of our financial situation. It was exploitative in the sense that the Godly cause is their ministry but their success albeit its somewhat dishonest application, speaks of its reality. In other words, I’m sure that many have experienced God’s generosity as they give out of their misery and poverty. It may look like fraud in a large scale but I’m sure that many have somehow benefitted when they put this principle into practice! I don’t advocate as I believe this is wrong. Yet I believe it is difficult to dispute the reality of the principle!
Rather than enriching others (read questionable ministers) for Godly purposes in name (questionable ministries or causes), we should, in my view, just be broadly generous. Not to enrich ourselves in the process but to use resources at our disposal for the Kingdom of God. When we are working, we set aside some for the rainy day. Yet we should also allocate some for generosity’s sake. But when we retire or about to retire and need to start dipping into our savings as we age without a fixed income, we should nevertheless be generous. There is no need to horde. Remember the story Jesus taught about the rich man who tore down and wanted to build bigger barns to store wheat for years to come? That night itself his life was taken from him! The point is we could hold on tightly to our fortune to keep healthy reserves for our old age but we may end up having too much when we pass. Alas nothing can be brought across. Granted it’s a fine balance to hold and yet give but the spiritual principle remains that if we are generous, God will bless us. In other words, we need not worry too much what lies ahead if we were to give to help someone out. We have a responsibility to God to be a good steward of our wealth, for example, for our old age and our children’s future but that responsibility in my view also includes the obligation to be generous for Kingdom causes. The spiritual principle is that the more generous we are, the more will we be blessed! Amen!
Ronnie's Thoughts 