EP 43: An Abundance Mindset in a Scarcity Culture

Most everything we do with our money is transactional.

So then it would make sense that when we get to giving, it also

feels transactional. And I think that's the first

major roadblock and hang up in thinking about our money and our

finances as a discipleship issue is to get out of the

transactional mindset and think of it through a transformational

lens. And so if you think about

reframing the question, so how does my money shape my

relationship with God? Is it helping or is it hurting?

Like that really is the question that then every answer can can

flow down. Hi everyone, and welcome back to

the Grace Church Members Podcast.

I'm Whitney Manus, and around here we like to keep things

fair, so we're putting our very own Scott Mozingo in the guest

seat today so that he can practice taking a little bit of

what he's usually dishing out. No, we're kidding.

But when Scott is not podcasting, he is helping our

church think well about generosity.

It is a subject that he's passionate about and more

importantly, that Jesus is passionate about.

And as we're recording, we have Thanksgiving coming up, closely

followed by Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and then we'll be

posting this on Giving Tuesday. And it's kind of interesting.

Even that order of operations says a lot about how we're

thinking about generosity in itself.

We're going to eat a lot and then we're going to shop a lot,

and we'll put a little altruism at the end to make us feel a

little bit better. So it's evident that we do have

some work to do, but Scott has some thoughts to help us reframe

that paradigm. Scott, it's always good to see

you. Thanks for being here.

Yeah, thank you and thank you for that welcome.

You're right, it is the the order is a little interesting,

although not surprising. And this notion of giving

Tuesday, I was very resistant to for a number of years just

because I felt it was super gimmicky.

And just like, OK, if you got anything leftover after all the

stuff that you were convinced that you needed through all of

the Black Friday ads, then just throw a little money in the

plate right to a towards a good cause.

But you know, then I started started thinking, if, if people

are thinking about giving and if the door is cracked, then why

don't we just like stick our foot in the door and see if we

can just push it open a little bit further.

So that's what we're going to try to do today.

Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, I mean, even just the

the name Giving Tuesday like that, there's a little bit of a

difference between, let me just give something like there's all

these charities, there's all these very valuable nonprofits,

and I'll just give something to them.

But that's a little bit different than this idea of

generosity. And I've already said that word

12 times. So tell us talk a little bit

about that. Just how are we trying to

separate out those two things? Yeah, I would love to, I would

love to rename it Generous Tuesday.

And honestly, as believers, it, it really should be generous

every day. And I think that's the point.

And so, but if we could start by parsing out the difference

between the two, to me, you know, giving is a transaction

and it's, it's because it involves, it involves money, it

involves currency. And most of the time if we're

using cash or right now, you know, credit card, it's just a

simple transaction. I need something, I want

something, food, gas, groceries, clothing, Christmas presents.

All I have to do is present some currency and then I get

something in return, right? So most everything we do with

our money is transactional. So then it would make sense that

when we get to giving it also feels transactional.

And I and I think that's the first major roadblock and hang

up in thinking about our money and our finances as a

discipleship issue is to get out of the transactional mindset and

think of it through a transformational lens.

And so if you think about just reframing the question, so how

does my money shape my relationship with God?

Is it helping or is it hurting? Right.

Like that really is the question that then every answer can can

flow down, you know, answers to how we live, how we save and how

we give. And I would prefer putting it in

the other in reverse order, how we give, how we save and how we

live. But everything comes kind of

flows down, if you will, from that question of how is

basically money and finances shaping my faith, my

relationship with God. Yeah.

And so I think generosity is a great word to just camp out on

and just think about how that plays a role in my spiritual

formation. So not transactional, but

transformational. Right.

And then it's not, it's not just money.

You know, money is a big piece of it and Jesus does talk about

it a lot. So that's part of it.

But that it's time and it's resources.

Like we want to be generous people and that touches more

areas of our life. Then I'm just going to ship out

a chunk of my paycheck each month and then I'm good and I

did my piece. Yeah.

If we thought about generosity as a virtue or as a character

quality versus just a transaction, then it does seep

into every single area of your life.

So a generous person is going to be more generous with their

time, their words, their relationship.

And so one way to think about it is, is generosity is certainly

more than just money, but it can't be less than, right?

It's got to include that just because of the challenging

nature of money. And we can look at just Jesus's

words himself. And we'll do that here in just a

second. But.

But Jesus really, really, really doubled down on on money.

So we've got to pay attention to that.

Yeah. So I think for I was having a

lunch with one of our leaders this week and he brought up this

idea because I always ask people where their ideas of money were

formed. Yeah.

So I asked the leader on Monday. I was teaching the class last

night of young professionals. And so the question, you know,

these are all people who were serious about following Jesus.

Where did you get your ideas about money?

And there is almost always some type of family origin story.

There may be a church story there where it was emphasized

and maybe the parents, you know, said, hey, we got to give back

to the church. And maybe there was a

percentage, 10% that was thrown in for for some like these

students last night, it was when they got into some money

difficulty, whether it was through some difficult

decisions, some things that were thrust upon them or like college

debt. So then they had to get serious

about how to handle their money. But almost to a person of the

folks in the room, they did not say the scriptures was the

primary formative tool in the way they thought about money.

And I just think that's really interesting.

And so part of the the goal and what I have the pleasure of

doing for our church and what we're going to do here is really

to kind of root our thoughts about money in the scriptures,

of which they're they're a lot of, and let that be the primary

driver and then see how well our personal experience and our

cultural experience holds up against the Scriptures.

So I think that any fair minded person would want to do that if

they're really want to follow Jesus and take him seriously and

believe that the Bible is God's word.

So to me, a big part of how we can describe our relationship

with money because money is in some ways money is is is a is a

neutral thing, right. It's just paper.

It's just coins. It's plastic for crying out

loud. Right now.

It's just a few keystrokes on our cell phone, right to move

money around. Yeah, but it's powerful.

The the the power is where we have to take into account the

question I I asked about our relationship with God.

Are we using it for good or are we using it for or is it being

used for I'll against us. Maybe be the way better way to

say it. Sure.

So some of the roots of how we think about money.

I I think for me, it's comforting just to go all the

way back to the origin story, not in our family of origin, but

in Adam and Eve and in the origin of civilization in the

beginning of mankind, because Adam and Eve were presented with

a beautiful living experience. You know, there's a garden and

there's a river and there's raw materials and there's animals

and there's like everything that they need.

And God gave all of that to them for their good pleasure, except

you told them there's one thing you can't do.

You got to stay away from that tree.

You can't eat from it. And then so they, God gave them

abundance, right? But then there's a second,

there's a second voice that enters in who's the opposite of

the voice of God. And he basically contradicts

what God says. And he said, hey, God, he may

have given you all this, but he's actually not good.

He's holding out on you. He doesn't want you to have

everything. You deserve it all.

And he doesn't want you to have it.

And so he's holding out on you. And what what the serpent

introduced, but the enemy of God introduced was a scarcity

mentality. Yeah.

So in a land of abundance, they now are introduced to a scarcity

mentality that they fall for, and they question the goodness

of God. Yeah, and it's the same paradigm

that, I mean, is really repeated throughout Scripture, like

ongoing too. So I'm doing remember your joy

with a group of ladies and you know, we talked about God

provides the manna and the Israelites come out of Egypt and

they're like, you brought us out here to die.

Like there's no food. And that's a real need.

But then God provides the mana and they still get to a point

and they're like, there's no food.

But we also hate this mana that you gave us.

So it's like, OK, there's there's not really scarcity.

We're just perceiving that it is and we're just complaining.

But then you have in Psalm 78, it says God rained down mana for

them to eat. And so there's actually

abundance all the time. And that's what we're, but

that's what we're thinking through is, you know, what we

want and what we perceive the scarcity to be, and sometimes

what the scarcity actually is versus what God is actually

giving us. Yeah.

And what's interesting is that the the physical means, you

know, of which they are judging abundance or scarcity is really

tied back to the provider. Yes.

So, so when we have a scarcity mindset, it's less about what we

have or don't have. It's really a question about

God. And we might not like that, but

but really that's what we're saying is, God, are you good?

And can you really provide for me?

Have you really provided for me? What am I entitled to?

And I think if we're honest with ourselves, those questions, they

just, they roll through our minds and they influence us.

And is God's goodness the same as what I think goodness is?

Because a lot of times I think I can get on board with like,

yeah, God is good. God probably does have my best

in mind, but that's actually just not what I want right now.

Like God has given me manna, but I just don't like it.

I would like a steak please. No, that's right.

And so you take you take this abundance and scarcity mindset

that I think we all struggle with, and then you go to the

scriptures and you read like the words of Jesus.

And I'll steal this from a recent sermon I was listening to

from John Mark Comer, and he was talking about growing up in

church. And I grew up in church with a

reverence for God's word. And so I knew I knew it was

right. Like I knew it was it was

morally good and right. Well, I knew it was morally

right, but I wondered if it was personally good for me, Like

would it lead to happiness? Because it seemed like God was

trying to take something away from me and keep me from

something that might be more, might lead to more happiness.

And so I knew he was right. But was he good?

And we can kind of get into this narrative as believers is like

following Jesus like it will include suffering like that is

true. Jesus told us that himself, but

then we equate that to be like, there's no goodness to be had

and we're just here to suffer until we die and then everything

is going to get great so we can get stuck there.

When I think what you're saying now is like, that's not true,

there's more for us. Well, I mean, I remember when I

heard that quote, it put into words what I was thinking and I

went back to the idea of being a teenager, right?

So growing up in church, a new right from wrong.

And so then you have teenagers doing teenage things, right?

So if they're drinking, if they're partying, if it's

there's immorality involved, then you just think, oh, well,

God's against all the fun, right?

Like God wants me to be over here and, and stay away from

those things. And, and he just doesn't, he

just doesn't want me to have any fun.

And we have a very adolescent immature way of what we're

thinking of how we're thinking about goodness, right?

But like nobody 20 years later, 30 years later says, gosh, I

wish I could go back and do all those stupid things that I was

doing in high school. Those were so good.

Like nobody says that, right? And so I think like when we talk

about the idea of generosity, so Jesus says a lot of lot of crazy

things, right? So I'll say one, and then we'll

go back and look at some of the other things.

But like he says, it's, it's more blessed to give than to

receive. And Paul repeats this in Acts

20. So, so I'm forced to say, do I

really believe that? Do I really believe that it's

better for me to give than to receive?

So I mean, that sounds right. But like, is that good?

Like, does it lead to like, happiness, like human

flourishing? And so that's really kind of a

test of a test of faith. And what I've found, you know,

we have a very generous church and I have a lot of these

conversations and, and nobody who is generous is looking back

just like the 40 year old looking back at the teenage

years going, gosh, I wish I could go back to being greedy.

I wish I could go back to hoarding my resources.

I I wish I wasn't so generous. Like no one says that there's no

such thing as generosity, regret.

Because if you will take God at his word, it actually proves

that. Yeah, 100 percent, 100%.

It leads to happiness. And then, you know, you can, you

can look, there's all these studies have been done that

people who are generous people, they have just a better quality

of life, like anxiety lower, right, don't struggle as much

with despair. They, they laugh, they laugh

more, they live longer, they have better quality of

relationships. And, and so just just on the

sociological side, you might say, oh, there's something,

there's something to this. And so, yeah, taking Jesus at

his word, taking Paul at his word and really trusting that

God is a God of abundance who has called me to be generous.

And so I just kind of thought we might could look at a couple

passages. Yeah, and one thing I'll say too

is I think the teenage example is a good one 'cause, you know,

you've raised teenagers. I'm trying to disciple some

teenagers and there is something about like they cannot think

further than like 5 minutes from now, you know, and I'll say in

my late 20s, I can't really think further than tomorrow.

So you know, that's. You're you're empathetic with

that. Right, I am, you know, some of

it's a human condition, but I do think as you get older and

wiser, like you just think about time differently.

But there is something to like we have to believe because in

the moment, like there is loss, like it's we have to die to

ourselves. First there's a hurt and then

there's a long term benefit. And sometimes by long term, we

mean like a month from now. And then sometimes it truly is

on down the road. But it's hard for us in the

moment to say, OK, this is going to be really worth it when I'm

40, you know, because I'm like, right now, I would like to be

worth it this second or tomorrow you.

Know, or at least I want I want a guarantee.

Yes, right. And that's the opposite of

having faith. Right.

But I know if I go to Target and I buy myself Starbucks and I get

some new clothes and whatever else, like I know I'm walking

out of Target happy. Yes, there's a guarantee because

again, it goes back to the power, the power of money.

That's right. And so thinking about Jesus

Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter 5 and 6, one of Jesus's

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

longer teachings that we have recorded.

And I want to use that because that is familiar to a number of

this. We, we know the Beatitudes.

And if you just read the beatitudes, I mean, again, Jesus

says some some upside down things when he says, you know,

blessed are those who were poor because they'll realize their

need for him. Blessed are those who mourn

because they'll be comforted. Blessed are those who are

persecuted for doing right for the Kingdom of heaven is there.

So there's all this upside down teaching that that Jesus gives.

And then right after what we call the Beatitudes in verses 13

through 16, he uses this idea of salt and light.

And so we know that salt has this ability to preserve to to

keep something in the healthy state, right.

And then light, let me just read what he says about light.

You're the light of the world, like a city on a hilltop that

cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and puts it

under a basket. Yes, we got a little children's

song in our head, you know. No, I'm going to let it shine.

So instead, you put that lamp on a stand where it gives light to

everyone in the house. So in the same way, let your

good deeds shine out for all to see so that everyone would

praise your heavenly Father. So this idea that light it

points it's it's so it illuminates, it points in a

certain direction, it draws others to it.

Moss to a flame. Yeah, it serves as like a

beacon, right? So the idea that if Christians

live according to God's word and according to the power that he's

given us to the Holy Spirit to live according to his word, then

we're we're to preserve and we're to be this type of light,

this kind of beacon of hope. All right, So then he goes on

and he has a number of different subject that he's touching on,

and money comes up a couple different times.

But then in chapter 6, two pretty famous passages around

money. One is the treasure in heart,

where your treasure is the desires of your heart will be.

And then no one can serve 2 masters, for you will hate 1 and

love the other, be devoted 1 and despise the other.

You can't serve both God and money.

So in between these two passages around money, he goes back to

the theme of light. I think it's super interesting.

So he leads with this idea of salt and light.

And then in this longer discourse about money,

possessions, not worrying, God taking care of you, all of that

he drops in these verses. So let me read them to you.

Your eye is a lamp that provides light for your whole body.

When your eye is good, your whole body is filled with light.

But when your eye is bad. Your whole body is filled with

darkness. And then listen to this.

If the light you think you have is actually darkness, how deep

the darkness is. So in other words, if we go

around calling something good that's actually bad, then how

dangerous is it for us? How deep has that lie set in how

deep that darkness really resonates within our soul and

keeps us from from being the person the people God has called

us to be, which is people of light.

Yeah. And so I don't, I don't think

that there's any coincidence that in this conversation around

wealth and the power of wealth and God is provider and not

being able to serve 2 masters and treasure and heart, you have

this idea that if we live with our possessions, according to

God's word, we are going to be a lamp, we are going to be a

light. But if we do not, how deep the

darkness can really be. And that's my biggest concern

about just thinking about money through a transactional lens,

even giving a percentage away, like, OK, I give a percentage

away. So then God's good with me, He's

happy. So then I can do whatever I want

to with everything else I have. Like, that's not a healthy view,

right? And having our views of money

formed by any other source than the Scriptures, particularly

when the power of money is so strong.

Yeah. And the cultural pressures are

so strong, it is really easy to say something is good, but it's

actually bad. Yeah.

So just going back to our kind of silly little example that you

can spend all this money on yourself and other people, OK,

so that's not wrong. But you can kind of indulge,

right, on Black Friday sales and Cyber Monday sales and local

Saturday sales and all this. And then let's not forget about

giving away a little bit and say, oh, that's so good.

Look what I did. I mean, that's why I didn't like

it, right? That's why I think it's

gimmicky, because I'm afraid that what we're doing is we're

saying something is actually good.

That's really darkness. Yeah, and it's a it's a great

picture. You know, as we often talk in

terms of like, OK, when I get to the end of my life and I am

standing before Jesus like that really is probably should be

like my greatest fear is that he was like, hey, you're in

darkness the whole time and you just missed it, You know, and

like the things that the world was holding out to you, whatever

those are, like it's different for all of us.

But you thought that was the light and you thought that you

were in the light and then you didn't have it.

But also, how much more powerful and influential are we as

individuals, but also as a collective, as the church?

And when we think about all of our people connected to our

church that are like going out into the upstate, if all of

those are individual lights, right?

Well, that's really something to aspire to.

You know, that like that captures my heart.

I want to get on board with that.

Yeah. And to your first point, just

about rendering a judgement, I think if our answer to God is

comparing ourselves to other people, like that's an example

of how deep the darkness is. Yeah.

And he's like, hey, you compare your life to Jesus because why?

Because I sent him to redeem you, and then I gave you the

power through the Holy Spirit. I blessed you with every

spiritual blessing. Ephesians one.

By his divine nature, we've been given everything we need to live

a godly life. Second, Peter 1, I am, I am

calling you to transform your life into the image of Jesus.

Romans 829 He's your Big Brother.

He's the first born and we're supposed to look up to him and

emulate him. And he's given us the power to

grow and mature and develop. And the idea that we can do all

of that without God in being involved in our finances, except

for like a small part where we're willing to give away.

And in the average Christian, I mean, gives away like 3% of

their income, right, right. So we're, we're not, we're not

talking about 7%, We're not talking about 10%.

We're not talking about 15%. We're not talking about 20%.

We're not talking percentages at all.

We're talking about an attitude that is geared around generosity

that is part of the spiritual formation plan that God has put

in front of all of us. And so like, like, I like to use

this example. If you say, OK, God is fill in

the blank, a lot of us say, well, OK, God is love.

Yes, God is love. We identify with God as love.

And if we are going to emulate God, then we need to love him

and we need to love others, right?

Basically, Jesus summarized the whole law in those two things.

Love God, heart, soul and mind, love neighbors as yourself.

And if I said, OK, Whitney, God is love.

And so you loving as well as you can with God's help is going to

grow you and mature you to a fuller version of a disciple

follower of Jesus. And you're like, you know what,

I think I'm out on love. Like I just got to work on

myself. I got a career, I got some

things going on. I'm real busy right now.

And so I hear you. I do think that's important, but

I'm just going to call a time out on love and maybe three to

five years from now, just check back with me.

Like that would not be a good spiritual formation strategy,

right? Right.

All right. So then if I say, hey wit, you

realize God is the most generous being that has ever existed.

And you know what he did? He created you in his image to

bear the marks of every bit of him, including generosity, all

the communicable attributes that get passed down to you.

Generosity is one of those. That's what he created you for.

So in order for you to grow, to become more fully like Jesus, to

grow in holiness to godliness, you're going to have to be

generous. And you're like, you know what,

I'm just going to call Tom out on that because I'm not really

at the place in my career where I want to be.

I've got all this student debt. Things are just, I'm not, I'm

just not doing well financially, which means I'm not where I want

to be. And so one day, I mean, I really

do want to be generous because we all do, because that's how

God created us. But yet we can come up with lots

of reasons why. And I would just encourage you,

if you're still listening to me, to think of it in terms of a

character quality or a virtue that God is desperate to grow in

you. And it really does not have to

do with the dollar amount or percentage.

It is a character quality that that God instilled in you that

the fall may have may have marred, but it did not erase.

And I'll give you a great example of that.

OK, We just had one of the hardest natural disasters to

ever hit our area, right? So for a week, things were

really upside down, right? So work wasn't as normal, school

wasn't as normal, church wasn't as normal.

And a lot of people didn't have power, couldn't couldn't travel

around like you would normally do.

So everything kind of comes to a halt.

But not just that, but then people are in need.

People are in need. People are without, people have

trees on their cars, on their houses.

It's just, it's just kind of a mess.

So what did everybody do? They looked for people who were

in need and they were filled with generous acts of love and

kindness and some financial. But generosity flowed so much

during that week. Yeah.

And you know what I saw? I saw people who were genuinely

happy. Yeah.

Despite their circumstances, Right.

You know, despite things not going well for them personally

when they didn't have power. And, you know, their their week

was interrupted and. And maybe they had a tree on

their house. Yeah, but the ability to get out

and to love and serve and show generosity to others, it was

like the best of mankind, right? Yeah, it was, it was, it was

Acts 20. It is more blessed to give than

receive. And I just, I just think back to

that like, God knows what he's talking about.

Yeah, yeah. And to your point about like,

we're really made for this. This is what God has set us up

to be. And so we step into that and

we're going to have a completely different experience of

humanity. I mean, right after the

hurricane, I mean, I spent those days watching some neighborhood

kids so their parents could clean up some trees and all that

good stuff, and then just helping some neighbors chop up

trees and carry them to a burning pit.

And I have, I call these things like barn raising efforts, you

know, like how people used to do that.

And it was this like foundation of community.

You have people coming together and they are offering, people

are bringing food, people are bringing their tools.

And everybody's like spending the day like just building a

barn for somebody else, somebody else in the community.

And the kids are there, kids are running around.

But like, I feel like we've missed some of that and we lose

like this great moment because whenever I get to step into

moments like that, it's so evident to me.

I'm like, this is exactly what I was made to do.

And we all go home and we're like, we kind of wish that it

wasn't over and we could keep doing it.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

And one of the things that was obvious about that time is we

couldn't be distracted. Our phones weren't working, our

Internet wasn't. Working.

And so we were, we were back to how we were created, which which

was our relational creatures who were made to look out for one

another, to serve one another, to care for one another, all

acts of generosity. And so I just, yeah, I mean, as

we get, you know, closer to the end of the year and we reflect

on that time, you know, what would it mean to really tap into

that? Like I said, the beginning and

not be a a giving or a generosity Tuesday, but really a

generosity everyday. But that only comes from this

type of transformation of recognizing that God is an

abundant God. I do not live in scarcity.

No, no matter. I mean, if you are listening to

this podcast right now, then you are one of the wealthiest people

in the world by the world standards, just because you have

a device that allows you to listen to this, right?

And I know you may not feel that way because again, our eyes are

looking around at other people in our orbit, in our

neighborhood, in our county that have way more than we do.

But if we could look around to the rest of the world, we would

just realize how wealthy we are. It's all relative.

Yeah. And so that's another sermon for

another day. But let me just say on this

topic and we'll kind of kind of wrap up here, but when you just

think about motivation for giving, you know, often we talk

about the mission and rightly so.

Like we are able to use our resources collectively, like you

talked about all these little beacons of light collectively

doing more than any of us could do on our own.

Right, like generosity is an individual thing and a

collective thing that's. Exactly.

Right. Yeah.

And so we get to the mission, we further the mission, we help see

Kingdom results both here around the state and around the world.

And that is awesome. That should be motivating for

us. But to me, like we're that's

just scratching the surface. Yeah, like that's just

scratching the surface. So that's like number one reason

to be generous #2 reason to be generous is the, the call in

command of God, like to just to be obedient to Scripture, to

form a, a, a discipline around acknowledging and worshipping

God and responding to him as the great giver, the giver of all

good gifts. I don't have anything that he

hasn't given to me. And so I just acknowledge that

when I'm being generous like that, that's good.

And, and I don't necessarily I, I don't need to wait until I

feel all of that, sure. To make that step.

Yeah. Of, of giving as a way to

acknowledge his goodness in my life.

OK. So I think that's too, I think

discipline is really important. I think mission is number one.

I think discipline is number 2. But this idea of spiritual

formation and transformation, like often, you know, I'll hear

other pastors say this, you know, they'll say, and I mean,

I've said it too, I'm including myself.

They'll say, I don't want something from you, I want

something for you. And which is a great little

statement, but then you say, OK, well, tell me more.

And there's not always a lot of more behind that, right?

And what I would say is no, if you just go read the Scripture,

2300 verses in the Bible around money, a fourth of all Jesus's

teachings involved money. Like it's pretty clear that this

thing that God has given us, that we think about, we touch

about we touch, we dream about every single day that God put it

in our life to draw us closer to him.

And not just use for mission and not just use as an act of

obedience, giving it back to him, but as transformation.

And, and it goes back to this idea of the generous nature of

God. And so you can go to passages

like Second Corinthians 8:00 and 9:00, which basically touch on

all three of these motivations. And you know, like, just look at

like a verse, like verse 9, you know, the generous grace of our

Lord Jesus Christ, though he was rich, yet for your sake, he

became poor so that his poverty, he can make you rich.

So he's basically motivating the Corinthians church by using

Jesus as an example of generosity.

You know, John 316 for God so loved the world that he gave.

Yeah. So even like God the Father

gives, Jesus gives, the Holy Spirit gives just the Trinity is

is all about grace, generosity, gift.

Yeah. And so when you read a passage

like Second Corinthians 8, there's missional, there's

response to obedience to God through worship, and then there

is this transformative element of what God is doing when we use

the resources that he's given us and and give those away.

And it kind of works two different ways.

One, it helps combat sin, which is where the cancer of 2

masters, because money can lead to greed, envy, coveting,

discontent. And those are real.

Those are real struggles. Yeah.

Those are real sins of the flesh.

Those are those are real things that will compete for our

spiritual power. And the only antidote I know to

that is to be open handed and to be generous.

Yeah. And and that's what that's what

God says. I didn't come up with that.

That's what he tells us. That's right.

So we have like the negative side, the, the challenging side,

which generosity helps us avoid, and then the positive side where

generosity helps us grow and become more like God, more holy,

more generous, more compassionate, more just.

And, and so you just see this big picture idea of God using

this thing, which is in every one of our lives to nurture our

relationship with him and to help us mature and become more

like him. So when someone says what do you

mean? You want something for me, not

from me. That's what I say.

Yeah, and it's exactly to what you started this podcast off

with talking about, like, do I really believe that this is good

for me? Is this God's best for me?

And it's in that same at the beginning of 2nd Corinthians 8,

Paul starts out and he says, now I want you to know, dear

brothers and sisters, what God and his kindness has done

through the churches in Macedonia.

They are being tested by many troubles, and they are very poor

like they're not. They don't have nearly as much

as we do. But they are also filled with

abundant joy, which has overflowed in rich generosity.

For I can attest that they gave not only what they could afford,

but far more. And they did it of their own

free will. And they begged us again and

again for the privilege of sharing in the gift for the

believers in Jerusalem. Like.

I want abundant joy which overflowed in rich generosity

and the privilege of being a part of what God is doing.

God knows what's good because he created us.

And so like, to me, I feel like he's just giving us a road map

to this idea of growth, maturity, joy, happiness, human

flourishing. And then he's given us this

resource all around us. And he's like, Hey, can you put

two and two together and, and act and just, I mean, my, I, I

have hundreds of passages that will help you.

But I mean, this is where I think the spiritual battle of

the age is raging. The war is raging.

And so if, if God knows that and God designed that, guess who

also knows that the enemy knows that that same sucker that

showed up in the garden and said, hey, you know what?

He's, he's really not for you. He's really not for you today.

He's saying everything you have really is for you.

It really is for you. You can trust, you can trust

yourself. You need all these things and

more to truly be happy. And, and so like the more things

change, the more things stay the same.

And so I do feel like there is spiritual transformation at

stake. And so this isn't just funding a

mission. This isn't just a church budget,

a new ministry option idea, a great nonprofit.

It's that that's, that's part of the equation, but it's, it's

actually small part of the equation.

The idea of developing and cultivating a relationship with

God, and God transforming us and the enemy being defeated all at

the same time, like it's pretty cosmic.

It is, yeah. It's way bigger than what we

imagine. Yeah.

And so when we just say, yeah, I mean, I, I gave 7%, ten percent,

12%. I wrote that check and I put it

over there in the corner. And then I just focused on

everything that I had left and what I wanted to do with it.

Like we're, we're missing, we're missing something because God

wants you to just like the joy that you should have in

generosity that you just described.

God wants you to enjoy. He wants you to enjoy your home.

He wants to enjoy your food. He wants to enjoy your clothing.

He wants to you to enjoy your life because he gave you all

those things He wants When you put money in the bank, when you

put it in responsibly and save for the future, He wants you to

have joy in that, not anxiety. That is not enough.

Yeah. And and So what I feel like is

we have a joy issue around all aspects of money.

Like we don't really enjoy the way we're spending it because

we're discontent, right? And we want.

What other people have We go have a meal at a restaurant and

we worry that we didn't order the right thing or that we

didn't even go to the right restaurant.

Why? Because we have so many choices,

we get paralyzed and we don't enjoy what we have.

That's right, yeah. Right.

We save and we live in a doomsday culture where there's

all this fear around the future because fear sells.

Fear generates revenue for other people.

So that's about money. And so then we're not really

joyful and thankful that we're able to put money away.

Yeah, and it's it's too easy to not make that connection because

as you're listening to this, we just had Thanksgiving.

That's right. And that is a key piece to this.

Like this is this particular episode is not about gratitude,

but it is critical because if we understand how abundant God has

actually been to us, like we don't question God's goodness to

us. If we've been paying attention

the whole time. And if we took Thanksgiving

seriously and really thought about gratitude and saw what the

Lord has provided to us, again, far more above than what we

deserved or asked for. And we recognize the abundance,

we can see the manna and we were like, the manna is enough.

I mean, that's another part of that passage is it's like

everybody took away what was enough, People who took too much

got enough. People who didn't have enough,

they had enough. And so we can just take that for

what it is and not be like, I just wish it was steak, you

know, then that is actually that is going to drive our

generosity. So we just, I mean, we have to

encourage all of us to don't miss that connection between

Thanksgiving and Giving Tuesday, like make that natural.

Progression. There's a straight line between

God as the giver between the gratefulness that we should

receive as the that we should offer as the receiver and then

the open handedness that we should be in willing to offer

generous gifts to other people. It's just it's all it's all

connected. It's all connected.

And so so yeah, I just think that they're they're big things

at stake. I think we should enjoy what God

has given us. I think we should save

appropriately, but we should do it all with this really heart

towards generosity. And if you start there, you

know, if you invert the paradigm and you make giving a priority,

that comes from a generous heart.

And so sometimes you're going to have to give before you

cultivate the generous heart, right?

But I would say take the step and pray, talk to God, talk to

other people and cultivate your mind with scripture and just let

God do the transformation. If what we're telling you is

true, then God is way more invested in this than you think

he is. And he will help you if you will

just ask. And and so the the

transformative power of generosity is really what I just

wanted to encourage and inspire people to today.

Yeah. No, I think that's great.

Thank you, Scott, for just your time and your thoughts around

all of that. And just as we close, I would

say like include community in this.

You know, if you're thinking about things and you have

questions, whether it's discipleship leaders or pastors

at your campus or however we can help you, don't try to do all of

this thinking by yourself because you'll talk yourself out

of it, you know, And so get some accountability in there and

hopefully that will be helpful for you.

But we're praying for all of you as you go into the holiday

season and appreciate you all listening to this.

So thanks. Yeah, Thanks, Witt.