Acts 20:35, “[the Lord Jesus himself] said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”
It is happier, it is sweeter, it is more soul-healthy, it is more pleasurable to give than to receive. Pouring out is better than taking in, giving up is better than claiming for one’s own, releasing is better than grasping, to empty ourselves for others is better than to fill ourselves for self. This statement can only be universally true in a personal reality (only persons can be blessed and can, in the true sense, give)—this can only be true in a personal reality, and in a personal reality in which the person from whom and for whom all things exist has eternally been a giver. And this, of course, is what we find in the Triune God.
God is eternally the Giver in Himself. He is eternally the infinitely blessed one because eternally the one who gives Himself to Himself without holding back. The Father give Himself to the Son in the eternal generation of the Son, the Son, receiving Himself from the Father, reciprocally gives Himself to the Father in harmonious response to the Father’s giving, and the Spirit is (I would argue) the self-giving of God in love. God is the Giver, the Given, and the Giving…And in this life of self-giving love, He not only is, but defines blessedness.
And this same blessedness appears in the incarnate Son, God-the-Given incarnate, God-the-Given who, in giving Himself to what is not God embodies and extends the blessedness of God’s self-giving life within the sphere of created reality. Because of who God is—and who we know Him to be in Christ—it is more blessed to give than to receive. It is a sweeter thing to pour out than to take in…….though, it ought also be said that there can be no blessed self out-pouring, apart from the fullness and unending in-pouring that comes from being in fellowship with God in Christ. Pouring out is the consummation, the full flower, the appointed fruit of drinking in the fullness of who God is in Jesus by the Spirit…..
