Your father loves to give. His pleasure is to give you the kingdom. He loves to make his children happy.

You know that great feeling parents get when they give their kids something they really want – and make them smile. That warm feeling of joy that comes over you – that is from the Lord. It is His good pleasure to give us the kingdom.

How do you receive it? Empty your hands so you can hold it.

The only way to escape the clutches of materialism is to give it all away.

Brian Carter at The Salvation Army – lived in constant fear that someone would steal his clothes, so he gave them away. You can follow suit.

You will live with anxiety as long as you keep investing your life savings in vulnerable things. I want better for you.

The liberal gov’t cannot tax things that are already invested in heaven.

Don’t spend another year bitter about stock returns and interest rates, God is offering better.

I know it is hard, and I don’t expect you to do it all at once. But I want you to have this joy eventually.

When I was in college, studying and making my grades almost killed me. Sunday was study day. But as a Sr. I became convicted that I should take a Sabbath and not study on Sunday. At first I just did a little, not studying until after fellowship. But then I started ordering my life around it. I started getting up on Saturday mornings, and going to bed on Friday nights. I found that I didn’t get into as much temptation before midnight, and Saturday mornings were exceptionally good times to study.

My grades went up, but much more importantly, my anxiety went down.

The same is true of giving. At first it feels hard, but the more you give, the more you love the feeling that giving produces in your heart.

You are created in the image of your heavenly father, his good pleasure is to give. The choice is yours, you can live with the anxiety of trying to continually prop up your beauty and comfort with stuff that will always wear out. Or you can live with the continual joy that comes from giving it all away.