stewardship

God has made us to be conduits of his grace. The danger is in thinking the conduit should be lined with gold. It shouldn't. Copper will do.

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.

...while God has done his part in creating a world capable of providing what we need, we have not done our part in the stewardship of it, in seeing that it gets to the end of the line, to the poorest and neediest--the children.

God pours out his choicest blessings on those who are anxious that nothing shall stick to their hands. Individuals who value the rainy day above the present agony of the world will get no blessing from God.

Don't sweat the small stuff" doesn't work with parenting small children. They only work in small stuff. They aren't making company decisions. They are deciding whether to use a crayon on the wall. _ Bill Klein

Lincoln bore down or anything he handled, mastering both the details and the principles.

Only God can make the common sacred.

As you give to fund God's needs, are you forced to trust Him to provide for yours? That's what a growing faith is about. And over the long haul, it's not enough just to commit to a percentage. Growth means reviewing your giving goals and occasionally increasing the percentage you give.

You see, what we do with what He gives us determines how much more we will get.

As believers, we all have the responsibility to leverage our wealth for kingdom purposes.

If we were to gain God's perspective, even for a moment, and were to look at the way we go through life accumulating and hoarding and displaying our things, we would have the same feelings of horror and pity that any sane person has when he views people in an asylum endlessly beating their heads against the wall.

When someone loves you so much that He dies for you, you can trust that any rewards He promises are going to be good.

Abundance isn't God's provision for me to live in luxury. It's his provision for me to help others live. God entrusts me with his money not to build my kingdom on earth, but to build his kingdom in heaven.

Compared to the rest of the world, it's like we're living in Disneyland.

The opportunities for using our financial resources to spread the gospel and strengthen the church all over the world are greater than they've ever been. As God raised up Esther for just such a time as hers, I'm convinced he's raise us up, with all our wealth, to help fulfill the great commission. The question is, what are we doing with that money? Our job is to make sure it gets to his intended recipients.

Wealth is a relational barrier. It keeps us from having open relationships.

Here's a scary thought: What if God called you to give beyond your comfort level? Would you be afraid? Would you try to explain it away or dismiss it as impractical? And in the process, would you miss out on a harvest opportunity for which God had explicitly prospered you in the first place?

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.