As I was told by a cousin when I began reading this book, "It will make you want to give everything you have away." It's true, this book gives new perspective to giving. Randy talks about the joy in giving and storing our treasures in heaven not here on this earth. It's a radical mindset this day in age where the more we have the better off we supposedly feel. But greed is not the way to happiness and it seems the more we get the more we want. I enjoy giving but this book challenged me to look at my giving and all my things with new eyes. "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." This is how we are to look at our money, not as ours but as God's, and ask what He would have us do with it. "The more we give, the more we delight in our giving-and the more God delights in us. Our giving please us. But more importantly, it pleases God." "Our giving is a reflexive response to the grace of God in our lives." He has shown us abundant grace and our response is to give freely. "Everything we send on ahead will be waiting there for us. It's our gift to Him, but in His generosity He will give those treasures back to us." We can't take our possessions with us when we die but we can send them on ahead by giving them away now. "Any temporal possession can be turned into everlasting wealth." "He doesn't look at just what we give. He also looks at what we keep." What are you holding onto that would bring you greater joy in giving it away? "If we pay our debt to God first, then we will incur His blessings to help us pay our debts to men. But when we rob God to pay men, we rob ourselves of God's blessing. No wonder we don't have enough. It's a vicious cycle, and it takes obedient faith to break out of it." We are responsible for our debts but are we not giving to God because of those debts? Maybe we have it backward, give to God and watch our money increase so we can dutifully pay our debts. "The more you give, the more comes back to you, because God is the greatest giver in the universe, and He won't let you out give Him." I love that. I want to try this, try to out give God and see what happens. "Unless we learn how to humbly tell each other our giving stories, our churches will not learn to give." We need to hear these stories so that we can be inspired to give and give abundantly. I challenge you to read this book. I challenge you to ask what God would want for you to give away.
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