Sermon quotes on generosity
Randy Alcorn
We should live more simply and give more generously because Heaven is our home. The single greatest deterrent to giving and to living more simply is the illusion that this world is our home.
“Six Reasons to Live More Simply—and Give More Generously” blog post on September 29, 2014.
Randy Alcorn
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 outgive Him. Go ahead and try. See what happens.
Randy Alcorn
In this context [Matthew 6]…storing up treasures focuses particularly on the compassionate use of material resources to meet others’ physical and spiritual needs, in keeping with the priorities of God’s kingdom.”
The Treasure Principle, Revised and Updated: Unlocking the Secret of Joyful Giving, Multnomah, 2017.
G.K. Chesterton
“Among the rich you will never find a really generous man even by accident. They may give their money away, but they will never give themselves away; they are egotistic, secretive, dry as old bones. To be smart enough to get all that money you must be dull enough to want it.”
Chinese Proverb
A bit of fragrance always clings to the hand that gives you roses.
Calvin Coolidge
No person was ever honored for what he received. He was honored for what he gave.
Jonathan K. Dodson
It’s impossible to be humble and generous when we aren’t looking at something greater and more gracious than ourselves. Humility and generosity need a target; we need others to serve and a great God to worship.
Taken from Our Good Crisis: Overcoming Moral Chaos with the Beatitudes by Jonathan K. Dodson Copyright (c) 2020 by Jonathan K. Dodson. Published by InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. www.ivpress.com
Jim Elliot
He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.
Francis of Assisi
For it is in giving that we receive.
Anne Frank
No one has ever become poor by giving.
Michael Frost
In a world of greed and consumerism, the church ought to be a community of generosity and selflessness. In a host empire that is committed to marginalizing the poor, resisting the place of women, causing suffering to the disenfranchised, the Christian community must be generous to a fault, pursuant of justice, flushed with mercy.
Chip Ingram
Unless God begins to move in my heart – and my wallet, my schedule and my to do list – I’ll never receive His best for me.”
Timothy Keller
A lack of generosity refuses to acknowledge that your assets are not really yours, but God’s.
Cliff Jones
Don’t give until it hurts. Give until it feels good.
C.S. Lewis
I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare.
George Macdonald
If, instead of a gem or even a flower, we could cast the gift of a lovely thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving as the angels give.
Orion E. Madison
Live and let live is not enough. Live and help live is not too much.
Payton March
There is a wonderful law of nature that the three things we crave the most in life— happiness, freedom, and peace of mind— are always obtained by giving them to someone else.
Mother Teresa
Let us more and more insist on raising funds of love, of kindness, of understanding, of peace. Money will come if we seek first the Kingdom of God – the rest will be given.
John Ortberg
Being rich toward God begins with giving to God that which He desires most of all. And what he desires most from you is you—your heart and devotion. Just as God can give us many gifts but the best gift is himself, so we can offer God our resources and acts of service, but the gift he desires most is us.
John Oxenham
Love ever gives,
Forgives, outlives,
And ever stands with open hands,
And while it lives it gives.
For this is love’s prerogative,
To give – and give – and give.
Scott Ridout
Generosity is not an idea, hope, or desire…it is a choice, it is a direction, it is lifestyle. Our God is a generous God, and our goal as believers is to become like Him.
John Stott
Grace is God loving, God stooping, God coming to the rescue, God giving himself generously in and through Jesus Christ.
The Talmud
Deeds of giving are the equivalent to the entirety of God’s commandment.
Hudson Taylor
The less I spent on myself and the more I gave away, the fuller of happiness and blessing did my soul become.
John Wesley
Make all you can, save all you can, so that you can give away all you can.
Chris Willard & Jim Sheppard
Generosity is at its core a lifestyle, a lifestyle in which we share all that we have, are, and ever will become as a demonstration of God’s love and a response to God’s grace.
Contagious Generosity (Leadership Network Innovation Series), Zondervan, 2012.
Chris Willard & Jim Sheppard
Generosity embraces a biblical understanding of stewardship:
- God is the owner of everything.
- What we have has been given to us by God.
- The resources we possess are assets to be invested in the kingdom.
Contagious Generosity (Leadership Network Innovation Series), Zondervan, 2012.
N.T. Wright
The kingdom that Jesus preached and lived was all about a glorious, uproarious, absurd generosity.
C.H. Lenski
The generosity and the magnanimity of God are so great that he accepts nothing from us without rewarding it beyond all computation. . . The vast disproportion existing between our work and God’s reward of it already displays his boundless grace, to say nothing of the gift of salvation which is made before we have even begun to do any work.
The Interpretation of St. Matthew’s Gospel, Augsburg, 1943, p.758.
Jonathan K. Dodson
When goodness becomes who we are, not just what we occasionally do, we become virtuous. When I was a kid, I ate sticks of rock candy that had the word Brighton stamped on the end. No matter how much I licked, the word didn’t disappear. The letters seeped all the way through. Virtue is like that. No matter how far down you go, goodness still shows up.
Taken from Our Good Crisis: Overcoming Moral Chaos with the Beatitudes by Jonathan K. Dodson Copyright (c) 2020 by Jonathan K. Dodson. Published by InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. www.ivpress.com
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