Monday, June 04, 2007

quotes on stewardship

Here are a few quotes on stewardship. See Making Disciples Of All Nations for more.
  • Jesus didn't tell us not to store up treasures. On the contrary, he commanded us to. He simply said, "Stop storing them up in the wrong place, and start storing them up in the right place." -Randy Alcorn
  • I value all things only by the price they shall gain in eternity. -John Wesley
  • Christ offers us the incredible opportunity to trade temporary goods and currency for eternal rewards. -Randy Alcorn
  • When our eyes are set on eternity, the news that someone has come to know the Savior means a great deal more than the news of a salary raise or the prospect of getting the latest high-tech gadget. -Randy Alcorn
  • It ought to be the business of every day to prepare for our last day. -Matthew Henry
  • Stewardship isn't a subcategory of the Christian life. Stewardship is the Christian life. After all, what is stewardship except that God has entrusted to us life, time, talents, money, possessions, family, and his grace? In each case, he evaluates how we regard what he has entrusted to us -and what we do with it. -Randy Alcorn
  • Let temporal things serve your use, but the eternal be the object of your desire. -Thomas A Kempis
  • Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face; and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace. -Helen H. Lemmel
  • God doesn't prosper us to increase our standard of living, but to increase our standard of giving. -Randy Alcorn
  • God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supply. -Hudson Taylor
  • Can a man be poor if he is free from want, if he does not covet the belongings of others, if he is rich in the possession of God? Rather, he is poor who possesses much but still craves for more. -Tertullian
  • How different our standard is from Christ's. We ask how much a man gives. Christ asks how much he keeps. -Andrew Murray
  • Giving produces freedom 100% of the time - freedom from the bondage of things, freedom to receive more from God, and freedom to be a conduit of blessing to others. -Tricia Mayer
  • Giving is the safety valve that releases the excess pressure of wealth. -Randy Alcorn
  • Their property held them in chains … chains which shackled their courage and choked their faith and hampered their judgment and throttled their souls. They think of themselves as owners, whereas it is they rather who are owned: enslaved as they are to their own property, they are not the masters of their money but its slaves. -Saint Cyprian
  • Make as much as you can, save as much as you can, and give as much as you can. -John Wesley
  • Earthly goods are given to be used, not to be collected. Hoarding is idolatry. -Dietrich Bonhoeffer
  • Five minutes after we die, we'll know exactly how much we should have given rather than kept. -Randy Alcorn
  • The less I spent on myself and the more I gave to others, the fuller of happiness and blessing did my soul become. -Hudson Taylor
  • Only one life, 'twill soon be past. Only what's done for Christ will last. -C.T. Studd
  • I have held many things in my hands and I have lost them all. But whatever I have placed in God's hands, that I still possess. -Martin Luther
  • For many wealthy people, giving a tenth is a way of robbing God. Their tithe becomes a tip. -Haddon Robinson
  • I am afraid the only safe rule [about how much to give] is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc. is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charitable expenditures exclude them. -C. S. Lewis
  • We're most like God when we're giving. -Dixie Fraley
  • The lust for affluence in contemporary society has become psychotic; it has completely lost touch with reality. -Richard Foster
  • Where riches hold the dominion of the heart, God has lost His authority. -John Calvin
  • God created us to love people and use things, but materialists love things and use people. -Randy Alcorn
  • Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man, but for one man who can stand prosperity, there are a hundred that will stand adversity. -Thomas Carlyle
  • God is not glorified when we keep for ourselves (no matter how thankfully) what we ought to be using to alleviate the misery of unevangelized, uneducated, unmedicated, and unfed millions. The evidence that many professing Christians have been deceived by this doctrine is how little they give and how much they own. God has prospered them. And by an almost irresistible law of consumer culture (baptized by a doctrine of health, wealth, and prosperity) they have bought bigger (and more) houses, newer (and more) cars, fancier (and more) clothes, better (and more) meat, and all manner of trinkets and gadgets and containers and devices and equipment to make life more fun. They will object: Does not the Old Testament promise that God will prosper his people? Indeed! God increases our yield, so that by giving we can prove our yield is not our god. God does not prosper a man's business so he can move from a Ford to a Cadillac. God prospers a business so that 17,000 unreached peoples can be reached with the gospel. He prospers the business so that 12% of the world's population can move a step back from the precipice of starvation. -John Piper
  • "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." Jim Elliot -- He wasn't saying he didn't want treasure, just that he didn't want the kind you lose! -Randy Alcorn
  • What do we value most? What would we most hate to lose? What do our thoughts turn to most frequently when we are free to think of what we will? And finally, what affords us the greatest pleasure? -A.W. Tozer

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1 comment:

Robert Ivy said...

Great quotes!

I too think that the 10% doctrine has done more harm than good. We should give until it hurts, not until we met our quota. (Of course if 10% hurts then I guess that's good.)

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