remarked: [I]f 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 expenditure excludes them.4

Rich Mullins was the uneasy conscience of Christian music. He didn't live like a star. He'd taken a vow of poverty so that what he earned could be used to help others.

The best way I can think of to give back is to ensure that every Hoosier family enjoys a better future.

If you give, you will be blessed.

It is one of the beautiful compensations of life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.

The only true gift is a portion of thyself.

One of the most beautiful compensations in life is that no person can help another without helping themselves

They should own who can administer, not they who hoard and conceal; not they who, the greater proprietors they are, are only the greater beggars, but they whose work carves out work for more, opens a path for all. For he is the rich man in whom the people are rich, and he is the poor man in whom the people are poor; and how to give all access to the masterpieces of art and nature is the problem of civilization.

God doesn't make us rich so we can indulge ourselves and spoil our children, or so we can insulate ourselves form needing God's provision. God gives us abundant material blessing so that we can give it away, and give it generously.

Whenever we have excess, giving should be our natural response. It should be the automatic decision, the obvious thing to do in light of Scripture and human need.

Unless we learn how to humbly tell each other our giving stories, our churches will not learn to give.

To turn the tide of materialism in the Christian community, we desperately need bold models of kingdom-centered living. Despite our need to do it in a way that doesn't glorify people, we must hear each other's stories about giving or else our people will not learn to give.