Ascend Global

There's something about generosity that creates a very sweet fragrance. When people give and there's nothing in it for themselves, they've just given unexpectedly to you, then there's something sweet about it. Generosity usually exposes greed. God is love and you can't love without giving. You can give without loving, but you can't love without giving, so the greatest way we express the love of God to people is when we can be generous and kind to them with no agenda. That's when people see God, because that's what God is like.

People are a gift from God, so right now in this room there could be someone who's a gift from God for you and you wouldn't even know it, but there is a way you can unlock it. Whatever you disrespect will move away from you, whatever you respect will attract towards you. We can become offended when people don't meet our expectations, and start to dishonour and disrespect them. Prejudice can stop you receiving people, pride is a terrible thing, causes us to judge, find fault, see the worst, and build a wall that stops you receiving. Discerning? No, you just didn't have enough love to celebrate them and receive them.

To be valiant is to be bold, to be courageous, to hold fast to the commitments in the face of adversity, to face your fear and wrestle with it and still deal with it anyway. God always sees what you could be. He sees what he's designed you to be. Paul said that at the end of his life. I've finished my course. I've run my race and a crown is laid up for me.

We have seen many people that have had much money and yet they didn't have what money seemed to promise, health and prosperity and every good thing. It seems like it still eludes them, so we looked at that and saw that Jesus taught very specifically about us placing God first. To be generous is to be liberal. It's an attitude of heart that shows up in every area of your life including finances. Generosity exposes selfishness!

I've seen too many rich people who had miserable lives to believe that money can really make your life happy. It just can't. God can make you happy, money can't. Money is just a piece of paper. It's some numbers in the bank. It cannot make your life happy. What it does instead is it tends to create problems.

The number of times Jesus talked about wealth and possessions, stewardship and accountability, far exceeded any discussion on any topic. In fact there's about 10 times the number of references to finances and stewardship and resources, than there are to faith and salvation, and yet all of these go together. Often the moment we start to talk about money, people freeze - and we will see why...

Life is a mixture of experiences - some sweet and some bitter. The Bible abounds in examples and stories of people, and it tells us that without faith we can never please God. We must learn how to trust Him, and trust is developed in private, but it's always shown up in difficult experiences we have in life. So difficulties are an opportunity for us to grow because they reveal our heart condition.