Acts 20:35 — I have showed you all things, how that so laboring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.

I’m going to talk about something Myra and I used to be really bad at. We’ve improved, although we still have a way to go! We’ve always been O.K. at giving, but not nearly so good at receiving. We were brought up, both of us, in ways that left us with a false pride about telling people about needs, asking for what we needed, and gracefully receiving.
Something, I can’t recall what, brought this to mind today and it set me thinking. My mind naturally turned to this verse.
Let me clear away a couple of things about this verse. The first is a controversy about whether Jesus ever said, “it is more blessed to give than to receive”. It’s not in any of the Gospels … Well so what? There’s plenty of stuff Jesus said and did that are not in the Gospels. Remember what John said: “And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.” (John 21:25)
The other thing to clear out is the thing the verse doesn’t say! It doesn’t say that it’s not blessed to receive. It just says it’s more blessed to give. In fact it clearly implies that receiving is blessed!
Let us start remembering the the obvious — “That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” (Galatians 3:14) — we receive salvation. I can think of no greater blessing!
There is another aspect to this. There is a sense in which refusing to receive is to deny the blessing of giving to someone else, to assume as it were a spurious position of superiority.
The heart of Christianity is a principle of self-emptying — that surrender of any superiority that Jesus Himself exemplified:
Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: (Philippians 2:5-7)
This principle applies to every aspect of our faith. Denominations should be willing to lay aside cherished “distinctives” to further the union of Christ’s church. Husband should defer to wife, and wife to husband … and we all should be prepared to lay aside strength, and take up weakness, and be blessed to receive what each other would give — if only we would ask.