Generosity Triggers God’s Blessing

God wants you to use your skills to have money to share — with people who can’t work or who are poor for whatever reason. Ephesians 4:28 says, “The one who steals must no longer steal; but rather he must labor, producing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with the one who has need.”

At some point, you have to decide that enough is enough. How do you know when enough is enough? Somebody asked Howard Hughes, “How much do you need?” and he said, “Just a little bit more.” That’s called materialism. Materialism is when you haven’t learned to live within your income. You always have to have a little bit more. Isn’t it interesting how some people are barely surviving on an income they once dreamed of having? God says at some point you have to say, “I’ve got enough.”

Is that when you should stop working? No. You keep working, but you’re now making it to give away and share with other people.

When “The Purpose Driven Life” became the bestselling book in the world for three years. That brought in tens of millions of dollars. Rick Warren could have retired and bought an island in the Pacific and had people serving him drinks with little umbrellas in them.  He could have spent the rest of my life working on my tan. But is that the purpose of life? No, it’s not.

So what did he do? He kept working. Why?  He wasn’t working to make money for myself. In fact, he said, “Lord, what do you want me to do with all this money? It’s your money, not mine. God said, “Go read your book.” So he did, and he only had to go to the first line of the book to get what He meant: “It’s not about you.”

When you write a book and the first line is, “It’s not about you,” and it makes tens of millions of dollars, you’ve got to figure, it’s not for you! So he spent the next four years having a lot of fun giving all that money away all around the world. Why did he do it? Because God gave him the skills to have money so he could share it with others.

Give freely and spontaneously; don’t have a stingy heart. The way you handle the money that comes in because of His abilities in and through you, triggers a response from God.

How many of you would like God’s blessing in everything you do? Of course we all would. The trigger that causes God’s blessing is generosity. Why? Because God is generous, and He wants you to learn to be like Him. You’re never going to be like Jesus Christ unless you learn generosity and stop being stingy.

God’s given you the ability to honor Him, to serve others, to make a living, to be an example, to have money to pass on to others.