God’s Money Manager

Dannah Gresh: If you’re a Christian, God is in the process of conforming you to the image of His Son. Here’s Randy Alcorn.

Randy Alcorn: If you’re going to be like Jesus, you’re going to be demonstrating the fruit of the Spirit. And what is more basic to that fruit of the Spirit than being a generous giver?

Dannah: Welcome to the Revive Our Hearts podcast for November 28, 2022. I’m Dannah Gresh and our hostess, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Choosing Gratitude.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Well, what a joy it is today to welcome back to Revive Our Hearts for the first time in a number of years, a longtime friend, somebody who has had a huge impact in the Christian world and whose writing and speaking has had huge impact in my life; that’s Randy Alcorn, a dear friend of Revive Our Hearts.

Randy, thank you so much for joining us here on Revive Our Hearts today.

Randy: Well, thank you, Nancy. Always a joy to talk with you. It’s great to be with you.

Nancy: Randy, I know that many of our listeners have read your books. You’ve written many books. And, as an author myself, I know the blood, sweat, and tears and the passion and the heart and the effort that goes into those books. Some readers, perhaps, are familiar with your novels. I’ve got to say, one of my favorites is Safely Home. If you’ve not read that, you can’t miss it.

You’ve written about a lot of subjects, including the pro-life movement. But the two subjects I think about a lot when I think about your books are: heaven–you’ve written several books on that. And then the whole subject of stewardship and giving. That’s a life message for you. 

That’s what we want to focus on this week. Thank you for your heart for this. I think you’ve challenged and encouraged believers.

In fact, I’m holding in my hand a copy of this little book called, The Treasure Principle: Discovering the Secret of Joyful Giving. It is by a long shot one of my very favorite and most-valued books in my entire library . . . and I have a big library. This book is worth its weight in gold. We have given or sold or promoted thousands of copies of this book, I’m sure, over the years. I’ve given many away.

It is so powerful because it taps into a theme that runs like a beautiful thread all the way through Scripture—from beginning to end. You’ve encapsulated the secret of joyful giving in this one book called The Treasure Principle.

So, we’re going to let our listeners know how to get this book, if they don’t have it. Or, if they had a copy years ago, you’ve updated this book in recent years, so you’ll want to get another one. You’ll want to share this with others.

We’re going to unpack some of this message, but I want to just say thank you for living and writing about something that is so close to the heart of God. We’re so grateful that you’re here to talk with us about this whole subject of biblical, Christian giving.

Randy: Giving is such a great topic, as you well know, Nancy. I know in your life it’s been so important. Thank you for your example in this area. Thank you for the way you’ve invested your life in eternity. I love what you do. I love who you are.

Nancy: Thank you, Randy.

Let’s just start right in on this Treasure Principle. We’re talking about giving and stewardship. And today, we’re going to introduce the concept, but we’ll expand on it over the next couple of days.

Today if you’re listening to the news at all, you’re aware that there are a lot of fears about the economy, about the stock market—people with their shrinking 401Ks. We’re all aware of inflation. There’s lots of talk about recession. I think it’s not reflexive for us in times like this to think about giving more. It’s reflexive to think about holding onto what we have.

So why would it be important for you or for this book or for God’s Word to speak into our lives on the area of generosity and giving while what we have is what kind of seems like it’s shrinking? Why talk about giving in a time like this?

Randy: It’s really a great time to be talking about giving, because what we need is God’s grace, and we need God’s joy, God’s happiness in our lives. Giving is key to both of those because God has extended His grace to us, and God’s grace is God’s giving to us. When we respond to His grace with our giving . . . It’s like His grace is the lightning, and our giving back to Him is the thunder. Thunder follows lightning. When God’s grace is in our lives, it’s going to demonstrate itself in giving.

I think that’s an opportunity for us to say, “Look, if we’re not experiencing the joy of giving, then we’re really missing out on the grace of God.”

The only saying of Jesus that is not in the gospels, but it’s in the book of Acts, it is in Acts 20, verse 35, where He says, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

The Word that’s translated “blessed” is the Greek word macarias, which means “happy making.” The actual literal translation of what Jesus said in that one powerful verse that isn’t in the gospels, but it’s in the book of Acts, is, “It is more happy making to give than to receive.”

So if we can enter into the grace of God, and we can experience the grace of God through giving to others, and we can become happy in the process, then we honor God. We’re loving God with all of our hearts. We’re loving people with all of our hearts. They’re benefitting, and we’re benefitting also through our own happiness, which I think is something that the world needs to see in Christians, that we are a happy people because we love and serve a happy God.

Nancy: Well, for sure, what you’re talking about is woven into the Scriptures, but it’s kind of counter-intuitive as far as our natural instincts are concerned and as far as the world’s message, which is: “Get what you can and hold on to it tightly.” We tend to think just naturally that, “If I part with something that’s precious to me, then I’m going to be less happy.”

Randy: Exactly.

Nancy: “And if I get something that I’ve been longing for, then I’m going to be more happy.” But God’s way turns that upside down.

Randy: That is exactly right. The way we look at it, it doesn’t make any sense from just the human perspective. But God says we are to “renew our minds.” And we do that by going to His Word. And we realize that we live in a world that’s upside down.

So what we’re doing when we’re giving and we’re following the Lord and doing what He tells us to do, we’re turning things right-side up. It’s the way it’s supposed to be. It’s the way it was in Eden. It’s the way it’ll be on the new earth, where there’s conformity to the nature of Christ.

Christ was the ultimate giver. He made the ultimate sacrifice. We become like Him as we experience, really, the joy of giving.

So even though it’s counter-intuitive, it is counter-intuitive to the old nature. And it’s intuitive to the new nature that we have in Christ.

We need to tap into that and put off the old nature and put on the new nature. And when we enter in to it, then we experience the grace of God in just absolutely transforming ways and attractive ways that people are drawn to. People are drawn to the gospel when they see the people of God joyfully giving.

Nancy: It’s interesting. As you’re talking, Randy, I’m thinking about a non-believer friend of my dad’s This was many years ago because my dad’s been with the Lord now for over forty years. This was a wealthy businessman who was from a totally different faith. He didn’t know Christ, but he knew my dad. He admired qualities of that well being, that well happiness that he saw in my dad’s life. He didn’t know the word “blessing.” He probably couldn’t have defined it. But he saw it.

I remember him saying to my dad, “I would be willing to write a check for a million dollars (which that man could have done) if I could just have what you have.”

We think, “If I could just have that million dollar check, then I would be in this place of blessing and well happiness.” But this man realized that having all that stuff didn’t get him what would deeply satisfy his soul.

He saw that it wasn’t in the stuff. It wasn’t in the having. But there was something else—it’s supernatural. It comes from the gospel. It comes from Christ. It gives us eternal well-being and not just temporal ability to write checks.

Randy: That’s right. I’ve had the opportunity to know a lot of wealthy people, famous people, professional athletes. And I’ve found exactly what you’re saying in their lives. Every single wealthy person that I’ve known have had similar experiences where they think that once they get this money that it’s just going to solve their problems and bring great joy to their lives, but that’s not what happens.

They have everything that everybody else wants, but they don’t have inner peace and happiness apart from faith in Christ.

When some of them come to faith in Christ, they still experience a lot of emptiness. They don’t realize they’re insulating themselves with their wealth. Their wealth has become the object of their faith and trust. But as they give away more and more and invest it in God’s kingdom, they find a joy in what they’re investing in.

It feels like sometimes that giving is just divesting, it’s just getting rid of something so that we don’t have anything anymore.

No. It’s investing. What we’re investing in feeds back into our lives with such joy when we see children who were hungry, and now they’re being fed, their lives are being changed. One day we’ll sit at tables with them in God’s kingdom, and they’ll say, “Thank you for giving. Thank you for helping me. Thank you for helping me hear the gospel so that I could be here in heaven with my Lord Jesus and with you.”

On that day, we’re going to have zero regrets. We’re never going to say, “Oh well, I wish I hadn’t given so much.” We’re going to wish, I think, that we had given more.

Nancy: I think that makes generosity one of our great means of sharing the gospel, because again, it’s counter-intuitive. The people who have it, it’s hard earned. They’ve worked for it. They want to keep it. They know how quickly it can be lost, as Proverbs says, “Wealth takes wings like a bird and flies away.” They don’t want to lose it. So they want to hold tightly, in many cases.

So when they see Christians, whether they have a lot or a little by the world’s standards, being open-handed and not tight-fisted, and see us being generous with our time, with our resources, with our stuff, it points to a generous God who loved the world so much that He—what?—He gave. He gave.

Randy: Yes!

Nancy: I think it’s a way of expressing to the world the incredible generosity of God who poured out, lavished His grace and His mercy upon people who don’t deserve it and could not do anything for Him. Because He’s a loving, generous God, it’s an open door to the gospel.

Randy: Yes. That is so true. Just to see God at work in the lives of His children who have discovered the joy of giving, who are living out the grace of Jesus.

It’s interesting to discover unbelievers who have experienced the joy of giving, and their lives, to a degree, have been changed, and changed for the better, even though they have not yet come to faith in Christ, which, of course, is the ultimate—to go to heaven and enjoy Him for all eternity.

God has certain principles in His Word. When we follow those principles, even before we come to faith in Christ, we experience certain aspects of God’s blessing. It’s like common grace as opposed to the special grace of coming to faith in Christ.

I remember for the first time seeing Bill Gates and Warren Buffet together on a PBS program years ago where Warren Buffet looked into the camera and said, “I wondered why I had all these billions of dollars, and I finally found out why. It’s so I can give it away to things I believe in.” And then Bill Gates is acting like a little kid about the privilege of giving and the joy of giving.

Now, of course, without Christ, they’re giving to some things that I would not give to, but they’re certainly doing other things that are very good things.

But my point is: when unbelievers are discovering this principle of giving, it just becomes so sad to see believers, people who have known Christ for many years, and they’re just stiff-arming the idea of giving more. Even the notion of tithing is just beyond comprehension to them, much less the true generous, above-and-beyond giving.

All the people that I know, many people even with middle-class incomes, that give away 50 percent of all God has entrusted them with, and then people who are wealthier that give away 80 percent, 90 percent, some more than that, and the joy they find in that because God has called them to this way of life. They have the gift of giving, and they realize God has entrusted them with these resources in order to invest mightily in God’s kingdom.

Nancy: I love that!

Randy: You just can’t imagine the level of joy if you haven’t talked to these people and haven’t had those equivalent-giving experiences in your own life.

Nancy: Now, it’s easy to think that that challenge we’re giving here . . . We’ve talked about people who have had a lot of this world’s resources, and they’re generous. And you say, “Of course, people who have a lot of money should be generous.” But this message is not just for people who are wealthy, in the world’s eyes.

Randy: Yes.

Nancy: I’m thinking of 2 Corinthians chapters 8 and 9. It’s the most amazing, powerful, inspiring passage maybe in all of Scripture about the grace of giving and the call to generosity. But the apostle Paul there is talking about some believers who were dirt poor. They were poverty stricken. They had nothing, by the world’s standards. And yet, he commended them for their generosity and for wanting to give as they were able and beyond.

So, when we talk about generosity, we’re not just saying . . . It’s easy to sit in our church or to think about a ministry that has needs, or whatever, and we think, Oh, well, that person is on the board. Certainly they’ll give to meet those needs. Or, Those people in our church, they have a lot. He’s got a successful business. He could sure give a lot.

Randy: Yes.

Nancy: Maybe they think that we who don’t have all those resources are exempt. But this is a message and a way of thinking, a DNA, if you would, that the Lord is calling every believer to, even if we don’t think we have much or anything we can give.

Randy: Exactly. Many of us who have had the experience of traveling in poor countries and seeing people who take a week’s worth of wages to buy meals that they’re fixing for the visiting Americans . . . It makes us feel so guilty, but it makes them feel so happy to do the giving.

I remember when my book, The Treasure Principle, was translated into Cuban. There’s a special kind of Spanish that’s spoken in Cuba, so it was especially made for Cuba. And then somebody asked me, “Wait a minute. Why would The Treasure Principle be translated into the language of this very poor country? I mean, isn’t that a book for America or Europe or South Korea or some prosperous country? It’s not for poor countries, surely.”

Well, the answer is: it’s for every country. I mean, the illustrations are going to be different. The greatest examples in Scripture of givers are the poor widow, as an individual, and then the poor Macedonians in 2 Corinthians 8, where it talks about “out of their extreme poverty,” it overflowed into rich generosity. Poor people are often way more in touch with the joy of giving than wealthier people are.

It’s that grace of God, the giving of God, that is so transformative. And people who are touched with that message, they experience a joy that is just almost unfathomable to the average Christians, sadly, in America.

Now, many people have learned the joy of giving, but many others have not yet learned it. And I think, “You’re missing out. It’s not just what good can be done with the money you give, though that is very significant in the lives of other people. But it’s what you’re missing out on because you haven’t learned to give and to give in a joyful and gracious way.”

Nancy: Wouldn’t that be a great goal for our giving, to come close to approximating the giving and the generosity of God? Of course, it never will. 

But I think we need to ask ourselves: what is my giving—of my time, my resources, my money—if that were a measurement, a metric of how blessed I’ve been by God, how much grace of God has come into my life. Would my generosity level show people that God is a generous God, that I have received abundant grace? Or would it say that I’ve received stingily and I’ve given stingily? Or I’ve just done the minimum.

You see in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 these superlatives. It talks about the abundance of joy and extreme poverty that overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. That’s all because of the grace of God.

You say, “How can extreme poverty and abundant joy go together?”

Well, it’s grace and generosity that bring them together. And to see these people with not two (whatever the kind of money was, denarias or whatever it was in that era) to rub together with such limited means. But overflowing joy, overflowing poverty, and overflowing generosity that reflected to the world the overflowing grace of God.

It’s a wonder and a way that we are able to reflect to our world what a generous and grace-filled God He is.

Randy: Yes! That great passage in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 talks about people’s giving and overflowing out of their poverty. It goes on to say, “Bring to completion this act of grace on your part.” He’s talking about the grace of giving. It says before that, entirely on their own, these poor Macedonians, “Urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service (this service of giving) to the saints.” (see 8:4)

It’s like, “Okay, they plead with us.” It’s like we were telling them, “Wait! You’re even more poor than the people you’re giving to!” But they plead with us. They wouldn’t be denied the privilege of giving.

I think that this sense of excelling in the grace of giving, and all that is said in that passage, it’s so important. Because it goes right on to say in chapter 8, verse 9, in this great passage on giving, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ: that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor so that you, through his poverty, might become rich.” (CSB)

This is where we see the essential connection of giving and the gospel itself. And, of course, in chapter 9 it talks about how “God loves a cheerful giver” (v. 7). Not simply an obedient giver, but a cheerful giver.

If you’re going to be like Jesus, you’re going to be demonstrating the fruit of the Spirit. And what is more basic to that fruit of the Spirit than being a generous giver? I think if you were to capture the essence of the person and work of Jesus Christ, it’s inseparable from giving.

Nancy: We’re really never more like Jesus than when we’re generous.

Randy: Amen!

Nancy: Now, you could say that about humility and serving and other things, but we’re never more like Jesus than when we’re giving. We’re never less like Jesus than when we’re holding tightly to that which we think belongs to us when the fact is it doesn’t belong to us anyway. It’s on loan to us from God who has made us stewards. That’s really a part of the essence of The Treasure Principle. It doesn’t belong to us anyway. It all belongs to God.

Randy: Scripture says a great deal about God owning everything.

Psalm 24:1 says, “The earth is the LORD’s and everything in it, the world and all its people belong to Him.”

And Haggai 2:8 says, “‘The silver is mine, and the gold is mine,’ declares the LORD Almighty.”

In Deuteronomy 8:18 it says, “Remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth.”

And 1 Corinthians 6:19–20 says, “You are not your own; you were bought at a price.”

You know, we don’t even belong to ourselves. Everything that we are and everything we have belongs to God. Well, the implications of that are just tremendous because if it all belongs to Him, don’t you think we should be asking Him what He wants us to do with it?

 

Nancy: Yes.

Randy: I use an analogy sometimes of the FedEx guy.

I say, “Well, what if the FedEx guy who comes and delivers a lot of things to me and also sometimes picks up packages for me to go to my publisher, or whatever it might be, well, suppose I found out that the FedEx delivery person had been taking home and keeping all the things that I had handed to him.

Suppose then that he looked at me when I challenged him on this and says, “Well, wait a minute. If you didn’t want me to keep those things, you shouldn’t have given them to me in the first place.” (laughter)

To which I would respond, “Wait! It’s not your job to keep it. It’s your job to get it to the people it’s intended to go to. You’re the FedEx guy! You should know that. Right?”

Well, aren’t we God’s FedEx guys? Yes, of course, some of the things He entrusts to us, some of the money, to spend it to take care of our families and homes that we live in and all of that. But He gives us a lot of excess, and He intends that excess to go to places and people who really need them. We are His money managers, investment managers, so to speak. And beyond that which is to take care of us and our families and basic necessities and all of that, He also gives us much that He intends to go elsewhere.

If we lose sight of that, we just end up thinking, “This is mine. This belongs to me.”

No. It’s been entrusted to us. We are money managers, not owners. He’s the owner of everything.

Nancy: I love that.

Randy: That’s what it means to be a steward. It’s to be God’s money manager.

Just imagine a wealthy person looking at the books and suddenly realizes a huge amount of money is gone. They call in their money manager to give an account, and he asks, “Where did all my money go?”

Well, I mean, what would you think if he says, “Well, I spent it on this. I spent it on that.”

“But it’s not your money! That’s stealing! You need to do what I’m telling you to do with it.”

So if it’s really God’s money, don’t you think we should ask Him first and foremost, “God, what do You want me to do with what belongs to You?”

Nancy: Amen.

And that’s why, Randy, I want everyone who’s listening to us today to grow in this grace of giving. I want to grow in this grace of giving. I want to encourage each of our listeners to get a copy of The Treasure Principle.

We’re making it available here on Revive Our Hearts this week for a gift of any amount to help further the proclamation of the gospel through this ministry. But it will help you to unlock the secret of joyful giving.

Dannah: To make your donation, just head over to ReviiveOurHearts.com, or call us at 1-800-569-5959. Be sure to ask about Randy Alcorn’s book, The Treasure Principle, when you contact us with your support.

You know, all donations we receive today and tomorrow, Giving Tuesday, are going toward our international efforts. Your giving will enable us to expand ministry efforts in France, Switzerland, Canada, Haiti, Sweden, Togo, and Rwanda.

It will enable us to release episodes of Revive Our Hearts in Portuguese, to reach women in Brazil with messages of freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

And, it will help us continue to grow Aviva Nuestros Corazones, which God has been using in the revival taking place in the Spanish-speaking world.

And, it’s worth mentioning that some friends of Revive Our Hearts are offering to match your donation, dollar for dollar, in the days between now and the end of the year. So whatever you give today will effectively be doubled.

But you’ll need to make a donation by Thursday if you’d like Randy’s book, and you’ll need to make a donation today or tomorrow for that to go to our international outreaches.

Our website again is ReviveOurHearts.com, or you can call 1-800-569-5959.

Nancy: Now, we’ve just barely scratched the surface and introduced the concept of The Treasure Principle. We’re going to come back to this theme.

But tomorrow, kind of as a little bit of a parenthesis here, many organizations, charities, ministries call tomorrow “Giving Tuesday.” You’ve probably heard about it. There’s lots of appeals and opportunities piled up in your inbox, I’m sure of it. Ministries saying, “Give to us. Give to us. Give to us.” When you get all those, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed, or maybe you just get paralyzed and tune it out.

Well, tomorrow we’re going to talk with Randy on “Giving Tuesday,” about how to know where to give, some questions to ask before you give to any ministry—whether it’s Revive Our Hearts or any other ministry that you may have a heart for. So be sure and join us tomorrow as we continue this conversation with Randy Alcorn on Revive Our Hearts.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth wants you to be a responsible money manager for God. We’re calling you to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

All Scripture is taken from the NIV unless otherwise noted.