Intentional Generosity: A Lifestyle of Giving

Imagine if your whole life, you just picked a percentage, boom, you know, it's $10 a week or $100 a week, or I'd say. Imagine how much money you would've given away responsibly to things you believed in and were passionate about. And do you know where all that money here's? You know where all the money went that you didn't give away? You don't know. You have nothing to show for it. I mean, you know, you'd be got some other stuff, and you upgraded your vacation, but for the most part, where did it go? I don't know, I don't have anything to point to. [00:38:24]

Generous people have already decided ahead of time where they're going to give or allocate their giving money. Generous people don't have to be asked. Generous people don't wait to be asked. Generous people are proactive. They've discovered, here are the things that are important to me. Here are the things that are making a difference in the world, I'm gonna let them know I'm gonna be proactive in my giving. I'm gonna go ahead and designate this. This doesn't mean you don't give sporadically. This doesn't mean you don't give spontaneously. But that's the add-on giving. [00:29:36]

Generous people pre-decide. That's what calculated means. Generous people pre-decide. They don't wait to be asked. They don't wait to be asked to see what's in their purse or in their wallet and their checking account, or I gotta think about it. Let me kind of get home again. No, no, they have pre-decided. They've pre-decided an amount or a percentage, and percentage is better because percentage rises and falls with income. They pick a percentage, and they set it aside, and that money is as good as given. [00:27:06]

Generous living, here's what we're gonna learn to do. The premeditated, calculated, designated emancipation of financial assets, hold your applause, that's right. The premeditated, we're gonna talk about that. Talk about that calculated, designated emancipation that is the liberation of our financial assets. So, the first word is premeditated. In order to live generously, in order to live generous, you have to have a plan. Look it up here. I don't care how much money you have, how much money, how little money you have. [00:19:43]

If you don't have a plan, you will not, and you cannot be generous. If you don't have a plan, it is impossible for you to be a generous person. You will confuse random acts of generosity with generosity, but you're not necessarily a generous person because without a plan, you don't know. You have to have a plan. You'll be a consumer, and you'll be what I call a Triple S Giver because you're gonna give, we all give. The Triple S Giver, spontaneous. You know, we talked about that in the moment. [00:20:20]

The amount is not what makes generosity generous. Boy, well, she gave such a generous contribution. Well, again, you don't know if it's generous or not. You don't know the context she gave out of. You only know the context that you give out of. So consequently, sometimes we think, "Oh, well, I don't need to give. I can't give much, so I shouldn't give at all." No, no, no, no, generosity is not about the amount. The amount is not what counts. In fact, interestingly enough, on this point, Jesus actually addressed this one directly. [00:13:27]

You can't follow Jesus if other people are last in any capacity because the whole idea of following Jesus is following Jesus puts others first because He put you first. This is why Jesus said so much about money because money is, oftentimes, the key, and food, but money is the key to our heart, right. And it's the thing that determines where our heart is. Where your treasure is, your heart is. Where your heart goes, your treasure goes. Jesus knew this, He didn't need anybody's money. [00:23:06]

If you call yourself a Christian, if you're trying to be a Jesus follower, you can't live like this. You can't. If this is a reflection of your money, you are not following Jesus. You may pray, you may believe. You may be offended that I'd say that. How dare you say that to me? Just read the Gospels. If you think I'm being hard on you just read the Gospels, okay? You can't follow Jesus if other people are last in any capacity because the whole idea of following Jesus is following Jesus puts others first because He put you first. [00:22:21]

Generous people don't feel guilty saying no because they've already said yes. Generous people don't feel, thank you for asking, but no. I don't feel guilty, no, no, no, I don't feel guilty, because you see, I'm not an emotional giver. I don't give based on the plea and the pictures. I mean, if you got, you give money to anything you want to, I'm not telling you to say no. I'm just telling you when you say no, it's because you've already said yes. You've already answered the question. We have chosen a percentage. [00:36:30]

You will be glad you did. If nothing else, you will be less consumed and controlled by our culture of consumption, because this is the way forward. So, real quick, I'm gonna give you a definition of generous living or how to live generously. It's very clunky. I made it up. You don't have to memorize it because I'm gonna walk you through it. So, here it is. Generous living, here's what we're gonna learn to do. The premeditated, calculated, designated emancipation of financial assets, hold your applause, that's right. [00:19:43]

Imagine if you had that checking account, all the good you would do and all the good you could do. And you know what? You're generous in your heart. I bet most every one of you are. I wish I could do more. Hey, do you really wish you could do more? Well, I did before you preach the sermon, and now I'm kind of afraid to answer that question. Because if you would, come on, if you wish you could do more, you could do more. I'm telling you, you have no idea what your giving capacity is until you have a plan. [00:40:00]

You can't consume your way to happiness. You've already tried. It's impossible because of, you are made in the image of Creator God. And He says, "You wanna be happy? Then you flip the script on how you manage your money and you'll save more, you'll consume less. You'll give more, and you will be happier." You won't be blessed, I wanna be clear. You won't be blessed in the sense of you gave God a dollar, He gave you 10, I don't believe that. You live in the United States of America. [00:41:00]