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Hudson Taylor and Charles Spurgeon believed that Romans prohibits debt altogether. However, if going into debt is always sin, it's difficult to understand why Scripture gives guidelines about lending and even encourages lending under certain circumstances. Proverbs says "the borrower is servant to the lender." It doesn't absolutely forbid debt, but it's certainly a strong warning.
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If we can keep ourselves from interfering with the natural laws of life, mistakes can be our child's finest teachers.
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I think we need to not look at sorrow and happiness as opposites that cannot co-exist. They can and do co-exist. I have preached many memorial services where you see the sadness and the tears for those attending, and then you see how quick people are to laugh as they remember funny and happy things about their loved ones. And if the deceased knew Christ, those in attendance are able to rejoice as they anticipate the reunion that will one day come.
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Whenever we have excess, giving should be our natural response. It should be the automatic decision, the obvious thing to do in light of Scripture and human need.
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If economic catastrophe does come, will it be a time that draws Christians together to share every resource we have, or will it drive us apart to hide in our own basements or mountain retreats, guarding at gunpoint our private stores from others? If we faithfully use our assets for his kingdom now, rather than hoarding them, can't we trust our faithful God to provide for us then?
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Hell is not evil; it's a place where evil gets punished. Hell is not pleasant, appealing, or encouraging. But Hell is morally good, because a good God must punish evil.
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I believe the most dangerous misconception is the idea our money and possessions belong to us, not God. Many of our problems begin when we forget that God is the Boss of the universe. But in fact He is more than the boss; He is the owner.
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Nothing is wiser than giving first to God, cutting back our expenditures wherever we can, and systematically paying off our debts to others, having placed ourselves through our faithful giving under God's blessing instead of His curse.
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Statistics show that a soldier's chances of survival in the front lines of combat are greater than the chances of an unborn child avoiding abortion. What should be the safest place to live in America - a mother's womb - is now the most dangerous place.
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Seeking happiness apart from a right relationship God is like trying to turn on a light that's unplugged.
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The tithe is God's historical method to get us on the path of giving. In that sense, it can serve as a gateway to the joy of grace giving. It's unhealthy to view tithing as a place to stop, but it can still be a good place to start.
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What you do with your resources in this life is your autobiography.
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If God was the owner, I was the manager. I needed to adopt a steward's mentality toward the assets He had entrusted - not given - to me. 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.
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You can't take it with you - but you can send it on ahead.
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God is the greatest giver in the universe, He won’t let you outgive Him.
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It's curious that the Church has become the most tightfisted at the very time in history when God has provided most generously. There's considerable talk about the end of the age, and many people seem to believe that Christ will return in their lifetime. But why is it that expecting Christ's return hasn't radically influenced our giving? Why is it that people who believe in the soon return of Christ are so quick to build their own financial empires--which prophecy tells us will perish--and so slow to build God's kingdom?
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Five minutes after we die, we'll know exactly how much we should have given rather than kept.
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As you go through life, don’t let your feelings-real as they are-invalidate your need to let the truth of God’s words guide your thinking. Remember that the path to your heart travels through your mind. Truth matters.
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Shouldn't we suppose that many of our most painful ordeals will look quite different a million years from now, as we recall them on the New Earth? What if one day we discover that God has wasted nothing in our life on Earth? What if we see that every agony was part of giving birth to an eternal joy?
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For the Christian, death is not the end of adventure but a doorway from a wold where dreams and adventures shrink, to a world where dreams and adventures forever expand.
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He who lays up treasures in heaven looks forward to eternity.
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Sin and death and suffering and war and poverty are not natural—they are the devastating results of our rebellion against God. We long for a return to Paradise—a perfect world, without the corruption of sin, where God walks with us and talks with us in the cool of the day.
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Too often we assume that God has increased our income to increase our standard of living, when his stated purpose is to increase our standard of giving. (Look again at 2 Corinthians 8:14 and 9:11).
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When you leave this world, will you be known as one who accumulated treasures on earth that you couldn't keep? Or will you be recognized as one who invested treasures in heaven that you couldn't lose?