You and I are characters in God's Story, handmade by Him. Every character serves a purpose.
Ironically, many people can't afford to give precisely because they're not giving. If we pay our debt to God first, then we will incur His blessing to help us pay our debts to men. But when we rob God to pay men, we rob ourselves of God's blessing.
Don't forget that the most effective form of child abuse is giving a child everything they want.
Give worshipfully. Our giving is a reflexive response to God's grace. It doesn't come out of our altruism - it comes out of the transforming work of Christ in us.
If God was the owner, I was the manager. I needed to adopt a steward's mentality toward the assets He had entrusted - not given - to me. A steward manages assets for the owner's benefit. The steward carries no sense of entitlement to the assets he manages. It's his job to find out what the owner wants done with his assets, then carry out his will.
Countless mistakes in marriage, parenting, ministry, and other relationships are failures to balance grace and truth. Sometimes we neglect both. Often we choose one over the other.
Christians are God's delivery people, through whom he does his giving to a needy world. We are conduits of God's grace to others. Our eternal investment portfolio should be full of the most strategic kingdom-building projects to which we can disburse God's funds.
Shouldn't we suppose that many of our most painful ordeals will look quite different a million years from now, as we recall them on the New Earth? What if one day we discover that God has wasted nothing in our life on Earth? What if we see that every agony was part of giving birth to an eternal joy?
God prospers me not to raise my standard of living, but to raise my standard of giving.
The repentant man rightfully loses trust in himself. He recognizes his self-dependence as the source of his problems, not the solution.
Teach your children gratefulness. Do all you can to deliver them from our culture's poisonous entitlement mentality.
God doesn't look at just what we give. He also looks at what we keep.
Give voluntarily. When we catch a vision of God's grace, we will give beyond our duty.
In the midst of prosperity, the challenge for believers is to handle wealth in such a way that it acts as a blessing, not a curse.
How can we recognize if we're falling into materialism's trap? Christ's words were direct and profound: "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also". What we do with our possessions is a sure indicator of what's in our hearts. Jesus is saying, "Show me your checkbook, your credit card statement, and your receipts for cash expenditures, and I'll show you where your heart is. " What we do with our money doesn't lie. It is a bold statement to God of what we truly value.
It's dangerous faith in our untamed Savior that leads us to the joy we crave.
It's curious that the Church has become the most tightfisted at the very time in history when God has provided most generously. There's considerable talk about the end of the age, and many people seem to believe that Christ will return in their lifetime. But why is it that expecting Christ's return hasn't radically influenced our giving? Why is it that people who believe in the soon return of Christ are so quick to build their own financial empires--which prophecy tells us will perish--and so slow to build God's kingdom?
This is one of the great paradoxes of suffering. Those who don't suffer much think suffering should keep people from God, while many who suffer a great deal turn to God, not from him.
Many [Western Christians] habitually think and act as if there is no eternity. . . . We major in the momentary and minor in the momentous.
If economic catastrophe does come, will it be a time that draws Christians together to share every resource we have, or will it drive us apart to hide in our own basements or mountain retreats, guarding at gunpoint our private stores from others? If we faithfully use our assets for his kingdom now, rather than hoarding them, can't we trust our faithful God to provide for us then?