A love affair has to do with immediate personal satisfaction. But marriage is an ordeal; it means yielding, time and again. That’s why it’s a sacrament: you give up your personal simplicity to participate in a relationship. And when you’re giving, you’re not giving to...
Giving connects two people, the giver and the receiver, and this connection gives birth to a new sense of belonging.
The Christmas spirit does not shine out in the Christian snob. For the Christmas spirit is the spirit of those who, like their Master, live their whole lives on the principle of making themselves poor—spending and being spent—to enrich their fellow humans, giving...
Hey, if you aren’t much into religion, you may not know how to recognize followers of Jesus. If you are interested and have a curious mind, I can tell you that Jesus himself gave a direct, simple way to spot them. “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples...
Love erases the line between giving and receiving. When love is present, we are all just sharing; there are no haves, there are no have nots, just people who need one another. The foolish distinction between who is giving and who is receiving, between who has much and...
People who are unwilling to love themselves are incapable of giving and receiving love that is not toxic.
The giving of ourselves to Christ is not the decision of an hour or a day, it is the work of a lifetime, with a new commitment every morning and a fresh surrender every night, until death finally seals our offering and our commitment is complete.
Giving frees us from the tyranny of money. But we do not just give money; we give the things money has purchased. In Acts the early Christian community gave houses and land to provide funds for those in need (Acts 4:32-37). Have you ever considered selling a car or a...
Remind us that the joy you giveis not in attaining but in releasingnot in storing but in letting gonot in getting everything we want butin giving all that we haveso that everyonemay be filled with good things.
In the modern evangelical church, singing, praying, giving, and other congregational acts of worship are regarded at times as preamble to the sermon. Music, in particular, appears separate from elements of worship that seem to be more spiritual, such as praying and...