Randy Alcorn's Blog

A reader wrote our ministry to share her pain over putting down her elderly dog, who had aggressive cancer. She explained she had saved the dog from a kill shelter, and helped him through various medical issues over the years.

This person then asked a penetrating question: Why does God allow this to happen to the innocent little ones?

Our Eternal Perspective Ministries staff member Heidi shared this compassionate response:

I’m so sorry to hear about your sweet dog. You saved him from an earlier death, and I can tell by the sadness in your e-mail that you gave him a loving and good life. You did something that God intended for us to do when He created the world, by being a caretaker of one of His precious animals.

The Bible never says animals are guilty of sin, or deserve to be punished for human sin. They are morally innocent. Yet it does say that all creation suffers because the world itself has been damaged by humanity's fall into sin. Romans 8 says that “the whole creation has been groaning,” waiting for the day God restores everything. Animal suffering is one of the heartbreaking consequences of living in a world that is no longer what God originally intended.

Randy often emphasizes that when God finished creation, He called it “very good.” Disease, death, and suffering were not part of His original design. They are intruders, not permanent residents. The Bible ends with a restored creation, a global Eden, where death, pain, and loss are gone. That is why we encourage an eternal perspective, which includes turning our eyes to the restoration of the earth that we are promised because of the work Jesus did on the cross to conquer sin and death.

You’re struggling with a question that most of us struggle with.  We aren’t given a specific answer for why one animal develops aggressive cancer while another lives to old age. Job never learned the reason for his own suffering, either. Instead, he learned that the God who rules the universe is wiser and more compassionate than he could yet see. Our inability to explain a particular tragedy doesn’t mean there isn’t a purpose beyond our understanding.

Here are a few posts on our website that I hope may be helpful to you as you process your grief and take your questions to God:

In this one, a mother asks a very similar question to yours about why her son had to die.

Is It OK for a Christian to Grieve the Loss of a Pet?

Comfort for Those Grieving a Pet

May the Lord bless you and keep you, and the God of all comfort be near to you as you grieve the loss of your beloved pet.

Randy again: Some might say to those grieving a pet, “It’s only an animal.” But pets offer companionship and love that many people don’t find elsewhere. They love us naturally, with no hidden agenda (beyond treat-seeking, which is usually not well hidden).

For many, a pet’s death is among life’s greatest losses. Margaret Haskins Durber, a character in Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon series, captures this feeling in a poem titled “In Memory of Our Cat, Ralph”:

We quickly turned and went inside the empty house and sat and cried

Softly in the dark some tears

For that familiar voice, that fur,

That soft weight missing from our laps,

That we had loved too well perhaps

And mourned from weakness of the heart,

A child’s weakness—to regard

An animal whose life is brief

With such affection and such grief. 

Though most pets have a short lifespan compared to humans, they occupy an important place in our hearts while they are with us. A pet is part of daily life in a way few friends are. We can affirm people’s greater worth, while still missing a pet more because of that daily bond. We love animals not because of sin but because God made us—and them—to love each other. I like how author Gary Kurz puts it:

We dictate their routines and provide for their needs. We feed them, give them shelter, rush them to the veterinarian when they are feeling ill. For all practical purposes, we treat them as we do our own human children. But here is the difference, they are perpetual, because unlike our own offspring, they do not grow up and leave the nest. They do not go to college. They do not get married. They do not enlist in the military. They remain in the home and continue to look to us for their provision and care. In fact, they depend on us for as long as they have breath. On our part, we are only too happy to meet those needs. For some, pets are the only children they will ever know.

Someone once asked me a penetrating question: “Why didn’t God make animals to live longer?” Perhaps partly so that we could learn to grieve and prepare for our own deaths as well as those of our loved ones. And furthermore, to provide us with the joy of having had several pets in our lifetimes.

If my premise is correct, which I explore in my book forthcoming All God’s Creatures, this will give us more happiness in eternity as a result of being able to reunite on the New Earth with more than one beloved pet.

All God's Creatures

John Piper’s 80th birthday was earlier this year. Piper’s life and ministry, books, and his insights and passion for God, have been a great gift to me and Nanci and our children and grandchildren, and countless others.

Tony Reinke posted this wonderful exchange below between Justin Taylor and John Piper during a Q&A. I just love what Piper says about living on the brink of eternity. (And I so relate, especially since Nanci is now with Jesus and I look forward more than ever to first of all being with Him, and second of all, being reunited with Nanci!)

Justin Taylor: “As you turn eighty this year, which feels like a milestone, none of us knows our day or our hour, but statistically you will be seeing Jesus sooner rather than later. What is that experience like now in your eighties, contemplating seeing him face to face?”

John Piper: “He sees to it that it stays real, because I had a heart attack last July and got three stents in here now. And I think this black eye right here is owing to blood thinners. I’m on two blood thinners and I woke up the other morning and said, ‘What’s that?’ And I went to ChatGPT. [Laughter] Doctor Chat! [Laughter] It said, number one, age. [Laughter] Thin skin. Number two, blood thinners.

Anyway, the point is, God keeps me on the brink of eternity. I look at that and think, what if it covered my face!? And that’s a great place to live. On the edge of eternity. … So the effect being old has is that it forces me to demand from the Lord that he be real. ‘I want you to be *starkly real* so that in the moment of death there’s no question, there’s no doubt, there’s no fear. And the meeting on the other side would not be totally surprising.’ …I didn’t used to plead like this when I was 40. But I plead for a kind of stark, present, precious, spiritual sense of the Lord’s reality, and that’s a wonderful thing to be driven to day after day, so that my devotions now are of a special order of urgency day by day.”

Justin Taylor penned a wonderful tribute to John in honor of his birthday. He writes:

In July of 1980, 34-year-old John Piper preached his first sermon as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church on the eastern edge of downtown Minneapolis. Surveying a sea of gray hair, he retained traces of South Carolina lilt in his tenor voice as he said, “I have nothing of abiding worth to say to you. But God does. And of that Word I hope and pray that I never tire of speaking. The life of the church depends on it.”

Piper’s final sermon at the church fell on Easter Sunday of 2013. The gray-haired, balding pastor, then 67, looked out at a sea of younger faces and explained why this wouldn’t be a typical farewell sermon with personal reflections: “It has been our commitment in all these years together to preach not ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord (2 Corinthians 4:5). People ought not to go to church to hear the sentiments or the ideas of a man, but to hear the word of God.” 

…At the age of 80, Piper works full-time from his home office, answering questions about the Bible and the Christian life through the Ask Pastor John podcast (400 million episode plays over the past 13 years) and through his verse-by-verse video series, Look at the Book (over 1,300 videos so far, with a life goal of working through all the Pauline letters). He and his wife remain faithful members at Bethlehem Baptist.

I encourage you to read the whole thing.

John’s son Barnabas wrote about his dad:

Happy 80th birthday to my dad. You may know him as a preacher or writer. While that is undeniably true, I get to know him as a competitor, a poet, a man of complex theology but simple tastes, a devoted husband, a delighted grandfather, and the best putt putt golfer in the family across all generations.

I loved these photos that Barnabas shared:

Thank you, John, for your commitment to exalting and glorifying Christ in the years He gives you. May we all finish well, to the glory of God!

Heaven

Honored historians plagiarize. Politicians invent war records. Coaches embellish résumés. Employees call in sick when they’re playing golf. Advertisements promise intimacy with someone beautiful if you buy this car or drink that beer.

We’re so used to being lied to, and so prone to self-deceit, that it’s hard to discern what’s true and what’s not.

In one poll, sixty-four percent of Americans agreed with the statement, “I will lie when it suits me if it doesn’t cause any real damage.” Fifty-three per­cent said, “I will cheat on my spouse—after all, given the chance, he or she will do the same.” Only 31 percent of Americans agree that “Honesty is the best policy.” When asked what they would do for 10 million dollars, 25 percent said they would abandon their family, 23 percent would become prostitutes for a week or more, and 7 percent would murder a stranger.

Once we had a moral consensus. Not everybody lived by the standard, but they recognized it. The words of Judges 21:25 seem eerily prophetic of our times: “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (NASB).

Years ago, on a family vacation, I looked into taking my family on a boat ride. If I was willing to sit and listen to a sales presentation, we could go on the ride for fifteen dol­lars instead of sixty dollars.

All I had to do was sign a document claiming that I made a certain amount of money. When I explained that I didn’t make that much money, the salesman said, “No problem. Just say you do. It’s okay.”

I replied that it wasn’t “okay.” It was a lie.

“Look,” the salesman explained, “these people would rip you off in the blink of an eye. They’d lie to you in a heartbeat.”

I was supposed to feel guilty—or at least incredibly stu­pid—for telling the truth.

I went down the street to another salesman. Children twelve and under were half price. “How old are your kids?” he asked. I said one was eleven; the other, standing there with me, was thirteen.

“No sweat,” he assured me. “Just say she’s twelve. They’ll never know.”

“But it’s not true.”

“What’s the difference?”

“The truth matters. We’re trying to teach our children that.”

As we left he shook his head, muttering under his breath.

My wife’s family has a cabin on the Oregon coast. Every year they have a Fourth of July parade. People on the floats and trucks throw saltwater taffy into the crowd.

One year after the parade, the streets were covered with taffy wrappers. Hundreds, everywhere. If there had been one or two, I wouldn’t have noticed, but the cumulative effect was striking. That pretty little beach town had become an eyesore.

Lies are like that. They pile up. Take each lie and multiply it by tens of millions in business, school, family, and government, and you have monumental moral erosion. It’s like bleeding to death from ten thousand paper cuts.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said in his Nobel Prize acceptance address, “One word of truth outweighs the entire world.” What did he mean? That the truth is bigger than us. Just as the Berlin Wall finally toppled, the weight of all the world’s lies can be toppled by a single truth. Truth res­onates in the human heart. People may resist it, yet it’s the truth they need, for it’s the truth that sets them free.

Tragically, Christians can be as untruthful as the world. Some Christian speakers regularly misrepresent the truth. The names of Christian celebrities are prominent on books they didn’t write. Christian leaders take credit for columns written by their assistants. Christian liberal arts colleges rou­tinely publish doctrinal statements that many faculty mem­bers neither believe nor teach. Some Christian musicians take offerings for needy children, not divulging that they retain 20 percent for themselves.

When we fail to tell the truth, we fail to represent Jesus, who is the Truth.

The Grace and Truth Paradox

Note from Randy: This is a wonderful article by Kevin DeYoung, one of my favorite writers. Kevin rightly diagnosis our greatest need in life—that is, to behold Jesus. So often we think that what we want is intimacy, a new job, a raise, a doctorate, a spouse, a large-screen television, a new car, a cabin in the woods, a condo in Hawaii, and so on. What we really want is the person we were made for, Jesus (and by extension, the place we were made for, Heaven). Nothing less can satisfy us!

The biggest need in your life, and in mine, is to see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

I’m convinced that more evangelism, more prayer, more fruitfulness, more holiness will flow from the fountain of our lives only when we start drinking more deeply of Christ.

If you want to be more merciful, look upon Jesus who cried out at the cross, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

If you want to be more loving, look upon Jesus who ate with sinners and welcomed repentant prostitutes and tax collectors into the kingdom.

If you want to be purer, look upon Jesus whose eyes are like flames of fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze.

If you want more courage in the face of lies and injustice, look upon Jesus who drove out the money changers from the temple with a whip.

If you want to be stronger in the midst of suffering, look upon Jesus who did not revile when reviled and submitted himself wholly to the will of his Father.

If you want to grow in grace, look upon Jesus who reinstated Peter after he denied his Lord three times.

If you want more tenderness in your life, look upon Jesus who took the little children upon his lap and blessed them.

If you want to display the diverse excellencies of God, look upon Jesus who came from the Father full of grace and truth.

Our main problem is not lack of time or resources or the annoying people in our lives. Your main problem and my main problem is that we do not see enough the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. We are not amazed. We do not stand in awe. We are not rendered speechless in his presence.

Too many of us are toying around with gimmicks and looking for quick fixes and miracle cures. Too many of us are digging deep inside ourselves for the change we want. Too many of us spend all our time tinkering with sports and the internet and home repairs while neglecting the one thing that is most needful—to sit at the feet of Jesus, to see him in the preaching of the Word, to gaze upon him in the Scriptures, to slowly meditate upon the pages of the Bible, to spend uninterrupted, unhurried time with the Lord. This is what we need.

Let us plead with God that we might behold his glory in the face of Jesus Christ. Implore him for eyes to see. Pray persistently and passionately to know him more.

Because there is no growing apart from gazing, and no becoming like Christ without beholding him in his glory.

This article originally appeared on Clearly Reformed , and is used with permission.

Face to Face with Jesus

It's All About Jesus

The Grace and Truth Paradox

I’ve recommended before Robert Wolgemuth’s excellent book Finish Line: Dispelling Fear, Finding Peace, and Preparing for the End of Your Life. Robert has now lived out what he wrote about, having entered the presence of Jesus on January 10.

One of our staff members came across what Joni Eareckson Tada wrote in the foreword to Robert’s book, and it’s just wonderful. Before quoting it, let me say that Nanci and I loved and still love Joni (Nanci is in a place where love doesn’t die). Joni is precious to us as she is to countless people. I never skim what she has to say.  Whenever I see a quote from her, I know God will speak to me, to my head and heart, and He always does.

“So, Joni, do you ever wonder what it’ll be like, crossing from this life into the next?”

I’m asked that a lot. Look, I’m a quadriplegic who’s lived in a wheelchair for more than fifty-five years. I’m straining with head back, arms wide, and pumping everything I’ve got into that photo finish at the tape. Do I wonder what that moment will be like? You bet I do.

What I am about to say is not directly from the Bible, but here’s how I like to picture it. I see myself bursting across the finish line and—like a marathoner—collapsing on hands and knees. I sink my hands into the sands of that celestial shore, heaving, sweating, and gasping. “I made it . . . I made it . . . I can’t believe I made it!” Then I roll over on my back and lie still with eyes closed, letting the restful sound of the gentle waves and the wind wash over me.

In the quiet, I feel the presence of Someone standing above me, Someone in whose cool shadow I feel bathed and blessed. I open my eyes and see . . . Jesus. His head is eclipsing the sun. He smiles down at me and offers His hand, as would any friend. I take it happily, and in one swift motion He pulls me up.

“Welcome home, sweetheart,” He whispers as he looks admiringly at me with unimaginably kind eyes. Then he pulls me close and pat-pats my back like Daddy used to do. “It’s been hard and long, but you’re safe now,” He says, patting me some more. At this point, I am sobbing until He holds me an arm’s length away. I blink twice, for he almost looks like my Daddy, or maybe my Brother. Or Lover. Or King.

“You made me look so good back there on earth,” He says.

My immediate reaction? Drop to my knees and kiss His feet. But the dream dissipates. The reality of what will then actually happen takes over. And although the details are cloaked in mystery, the Bible describes a glorious dénouement with angels and rewards; the devil and his hordes—all of them—destroyed; death gone; Christ’s name vindicated as He is crowned the undisputed King of the universe. The Bible says we will reign alongside Him, spreading His kingdom of love, light, and beauty throughout the endless cosmos. Our song of suffering will be over, and forever we will sing of Jesus’ sufferings and how his excruciatingly tender love won for us so great a salvation.

50 Days of Heaven (Special Edition)

Heaven

Heaven for Kids

Do you have family and friends you wish you could spend more time with? In Heaven you’ll have unlimited time. I’m eager to spend time again with my childhood friend Jerry, who died years ago. I anticipate meeting him in Heaven and picking up right where we left off.

A young woman visiting a missionary in Eastern Europe asked her, “Isn’t it hard being so far away from your [grown] children and missing important events in their lives?”

“Sure,” the missionary replied. “But in Heaven we’ll have all the time together we want. Right now there’s kingdom work that needs to be done.” This woman knows where her true home is—and that life there will be real life and that relationships among God’s people will resume in ways even better than what we’ve known here.

We may not be able to regain opportunities that we passed up due to unfaithfulness, but I believe we’ll regain whatever we passed up in order to faithfully serve God. Jesus said, “Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you. . . . Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven” (Luke 6:21-23).

Perhaps in some way on the New Earth, the wives and children of the five missionaries killed by the Auca Indians will receive “comp time” with their loved ones. Consider the millions of Christians who’ve suffered and died in prison because of their faith, who were snatched away from their families, deprived of opportunities they craved with children and parents and spouses. Wouldn’t it be just like Jesus to reward them on the New Earth with opportunities to do the very things they missed—and far better things as well? That would fit well with the words of Jim Elliot, one of the five murdered missionaries: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

Heaven offers more than comfort; it offers compensation. In the same way that the hungry will fill up in Heaven and those who weep will laugh, will those who suffer tragedy experience a compensating victory? Maybe on the New Earth my friend Greg will experience a greater but not dissimilar form of the joy he’d have had on this earth if he had not died as a teenager, impaled on a fence post. Maybe all my mom missed because she died before our daughters became adults will be hers in Heaven. She was a faithful servant of God and loved her granddaughters, who were very young when she died. I think God allowed my mom to watch them get married and become mothers, but one day she’ll do more than watch them. I think it’s likely that when they’re together on the New Earth, she’ll enjoy all the time she missed with them—and they with her. Maybe those who lost infants to miscarriage and disease and accidents will be given make-up time with them in the new world.

If a father dies before his daughter’s wedding and if he and she are Christians, then he’ll be there for his daughter’s ultimate wedding—to Christ. They will experience a far greater joy on the New Earth than the joy they could have experienced on the old Earth if he had lived longer. If he died before she became an accomplished pianist, he may hear her now from Heaven, but he’ll hear her play far better on the New Earth—and she’ll see him watching her, delight on his face. If he never lived to see his believing son play basketball, he’ll not only see him play on Earth but also play with him on the New Earth. And his children will enjoy the pleasure of seeing the look of utter approval on their father’s face . . . and their Father’s face.

In the movie Babette’s Feast, through the misfortunes of war Babette was forced to leave Paris, where she’d been an exquisite gourmet cook. She ended up as a maid for two women who led a small group of austere believers who frowned on such worldly things as good cooking. Babette comes into a large sum of money and spends it all on a single dinner party given for the elderly sisters she’s come to love. It’s a picture of God’s extravagant grace. Babette realizes she’ll never again be able to afford to give such a gift or prepare such a meal. Touched by Babette’s generosity, Phillipa—herself a gifted singer who had little opportunity to develop her gift—consoles her: “Babette, this is not the end; I’m certain it’s not. In Paradise you will be the great artist that God meant you to be! . . . Oh, how you will delight the angels!”

For those who know God, this sentiment is biblical. He’s a God who redeems lost opportunities—especially those lost through our faithful service. I believe that once the Curse is lifted and death is forever reversed, we may live out many of the “could have beens” taken from us on this old Earth.

I think it’s probable that two friends who always dreamed of going to a special place, but never managed to, will be able to go to that very place on the New Earth. And the man who couldn’t get out of his wheelchair to go biking with his son will never lack that opportunity again.

Heaven

In Revelation 5:8-10, Heaven’s four worshiping animals (usually translated as “living creatures”) fall down before the Lamb alongside God’s people. John describes how they sing a new song about Christ’s redemptive work:

Worthy is the Lamb who was slaughtered—to receive power and riches
and wisdom and strength
and honor and glory and blessing.

(Revelation 5:12)

John then indicates that animals are now praising—or will praise—their Creator in His presence:

Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, saying:

“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!”

(Revelation 5:13, NIV)

(The word for creature here is ktisma, which clearly means “animals” when it is used in Revelation 8:9).

“Every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea” sings of blessing and honor and glory to God. The addition of “and all that is in them” might seem superfluous, but God intends for us to see that “every creature” couldn’t be more all-encompassing! How many animals? All of them on Earth—land animals, sky animals, and sea animals.

According to Scripture, animals praise God. But animals don’t sing, do they? Well, birds sing and so do whales. (While snorkeling, I’ve heard whales sing for hours at a time, and I worshiped along with them.) Animals really do sing and praise God, but that doesn’t mean we should expect them to sound like us.

How long will all these animals sing praises to God and to Jesus, the Lamb and Lion of God? David writes, “My mouth will speak the praise of the Lord [Yahweh], and let all flesh bless his holy name forever and ever” (Psalm 145:21, ESV). In the Flood account, the Hebrew words translated “all flesh” mean all living beings, including animals and people. Since “all flesh” includes animals, Psalm 145 appears to say that animals will also bless God’s holy name forever and ever.

We may not be able to fully understand these Scriptures, but that isn’t God’s fault. They’ve been in the Bible all along, and their meaning hasn’t changed, even if we don’t fully grasp that meaning.

But this part, at least, seems clear: If animals are praising God on Earth and in Heaven right now, and will praise him “forever and ever” in the world to come, it must mean they will actually live forever and ever in order to do so! What God recognizes as singing may to us be grunting, chirping, croaking, purring, clucking, mooing, or roaring.

Animals don’t worship as we do, but why should they? They’re not human. Their worship of God may be as intuitive as their other God-given instincts—which are different from ours, and in some cases superior. The assumption that something cannot exist in animals simply because we cannot see it says less about the animals’ incapacities than it does our arrogance. Diversity is part of what makes creaturely worship so beautiful and God-glorifying. That it is hard for us to grasp should deepen and broaden our appreciation of God’s greatness.

Elizabeth Johnson, of Fordham University, in a scholarly article titled “Animals’ Praise of God,” looks at the biblical passages and concludes that Scripture depicts “animal praise as a dimension of creation’s praise of God happening in real time, independent of human mediation.” She argues that, in the Bible, “animals’ praise is neither an anthropomorphic projection nor a beautiful fiction, but a real action that occurs in real time.”

The animals God created actively praise and honor Him, despite our inability to recognize it. Indeed, Psalm 148 commands all creation, animals included, to praise the Lord:

Praise Yah!

Praise Yahweh from the heavens . . . Praise Him, all His angels . . .

Praise Yahweh from the earth, Sea monsters and all deeps . . . Beasts and all cattle;

Creeping things and winged bird. . . .

Let them [both animals and people] praise the name of Yahweh, For His name alone is set on high;

His splendor is above earth and heaven.

Psalm 148:1-2 , 7, 10, 13, LSB

God commands praise from the great sea creatures in the depths of the ocean—some never before seen by human eyes. Don’t miss what would be an outrageous claim if not for the fact that Scripture itself reveals it—“sea monsters,” creatures of unknown size and strength are right now in remote ocean reaches praising God. And their Creator hears them and gladly receives their praise. (Don’t take this as my particular interpretation—look at what the passage itself says.)

I believe a proper reading of Scripture makes the notion of an eternal kingdom on the New Earth without animals impossible to believe. God’s cure for this broken world will not fail. When the earth is filled with the knowledge of Him, all God’s creatures—great and small—will worship Him forever with grateful delight alongside His children!

Excerpted from All God’s Creatures: What the Bible Says About Animals, Heaven, and the New Earth, coming November 17 and available for preorder from EPM.

All God's Creatures

Our ministry was sent this video from Set Free Alliance, a ministry focused on giving clean water, rescuing children, providing mobile medical clinics, and planting churches. One of their donors, attorney Peter Manning, was deeply impacted by my book The Treasure Principle:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tt6eMcGu6rQ

Peter became a “reverse tither,” with the goal to live off 10% of his income and give the rest away. I love the enthusiasm and joy in his words:

“To earn money so I can give it away, is just fun!”

“It’s a blessing that God has used me in this small fashion.”

He’s right—what a privilege to give God’s money back to Him! R. G. LeTourneau, inventor of the world’s largest earth moving machines, gave away 90% of his income. He often quoted a friend who said, “God shovels it out, and I shovel it back; but God has a bigger shovel.”

You may feel that living on 10% of your income would be impossible. But why not ask God, “Do You want me to set a basic level of income and assets to live on, then immediately give away whatever You provide beyond that?” (Regardless of whether that’s 30%, 50%, 90%, or more?)

I believe the Christian community should be filled with people who set caps on their lifestyles, giving away everything above that amount. Some call this “setting a finish line.” That means if we make a predetermined amount of money or save a certain amount, that’s it. We won’t accumulate any more. We’ll give away everything else. That isn’t sacrificial giving, it’s giving according to our ability. Yet, by most of our standards, it’s so radical we may not know anyone who lives that way.

John Wesley preached that Christians should not merely tithe but give away all extra income once the family and creditors are taken care of. He believed that with increasing income, a Christian’s giving, not his lifestyle, should increase. He began this practice at Oxford and continued it throughout his life. Even when his income rose to thousands of pounds, he lived simply and quickly gave away his surplus. He was afraid of laying up treasures on Earth, so the money went out to charity as quickly as it came in. Wesley’s practice is in keeping with Scripture (2 Corinthians 8:14; 9:11).

I urge you to embrace Christ’s invitation: “Give, and it will be given to you” (Luke 6:38). Then, when He gives you more, remind yourself why: “So that you can be generous on every occasion” (2 Corinthians 9:11). When you give more and more, as Peter Manning has discovered, you’ll experience God’s joy. When you give, you’ll feel His pleasure! And God may choose to increase your income, not to raise your standards of living, but to raise your standard of giving. What a privilege that is!

Giving Is the Good Life (Softcover)

Managing God's Money

The Treasure Principle: Revised and Updated

A reader asked me, “I often hear the saying ‘I want to be ready to meet my Lord.’ Can you explain what exactly you mean by this, please?”  

First of all, and most importantly, being ready to meet the Lord means you’ve made sure of your relationship with Jesus Christ, and are trusting only Him to save you—not anyone or anything else, and certainly not any good works you’ve done. R. A. Torrey put it this way: “I am ready to meet God face to face tonight…for all my sins are covered by the atoning blood.”

Romans 10:9 says, “If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” And in John 5:24 Jesus tells us, “Whoever hears my word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.”

Once you’ve accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior, being ready to meet the Lord means living in a way that pleases Him so that whenever He calls you home—and knowing that could be any time—you can hear Him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant!” 

Scripture teaches with unmistakable clarity that all believers in Christ will give an account of their lives to their Lord (Romans 14:10-12). Even if Christ does not return for two hundred years, we will meet Him in our deaths, whether in twenty years, twenty months, or twenty minutes. God encourages us not to be surprised about the soon coming of our appointment to stand before Him. If we are ready to meet Christ, we will long for His return. If we are not ready, we will dread it. If we do not feel ready to meet Him, now is the time to get ready.

Readers of my books are probably familiar with my emphasis on how five minutes after we die, we’ll know exactly how we should have lived. But we can’t do life here over again. There’s no retaking the course once we’ve failed it. There’s no improving a D to an A. No rescheduling the final exams. Death is the deadline. There’s no extension.

The good news is we don’t have to wait until we die to know how we should live! God has given us His Word to tell us how to live and His indwelling Spirit to empower us to live as we should. “His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness” (2 Peter 1:3, NIV).  Every day God gives us is an opportunity to live for Christ: “So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him” (2 Corinthians 5:9).

If we are His children, God is for us, not against us (Romans 8:31). He has assured us our names are written in the Book of Life, and we won’t face the Great White Throne Judgment. He wants to commend and reward us at the judgment seat of Christ. He doesn’t want the works of our lifetime to go up in smoke. He wants us to have eternal rewards—and He has given us ­every­ resource in Christ to live the godly life that will result in those eternal rewards. “Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done” (Revelation 22:12).

Peter says, “If you do these things, [then] you will never fall, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:10-11). What a powerful encouragement this is to saints who sacrifice in this life to prepare for the next! In Heaven a great welcoming committee awaits them and a hearty “Well done!” But this isn’t automatic—the conditional “if, then” makes it clear that if we don’t do what Peter prescribed, then we won’t receive this rich welcome when we enter Heaven.

In my book The Purity Principle, I share how years ago I was approached by a woman who told me that a year earlier her husband had come to her in tears, confessing his attraction to a coworker. He was under constant temptation and felt himself slipping. He committed himself to back off from the relationship and asked his wife to understand and pray for him. She was hurt but realized she needed to help him rather than feel sorry for herself.

The result? Not only did he back off, but through his wife’s support they drew closer together than ever. In tears she told me, “Two months ago my husband died without warning. If he hadn’t been honest with me that night, he would have had an affair with that woman—and likely would have left me. He would have died unready to meet God, and I would have lived the rest of my life grieving over his affair. But that isn’t what happened. His last words to me were, ‘I love you,’ and I know it was true—he’d proven it by his actions. I thank God every day that I think of him with complete respect and admiration for loving God and me enough to be honest about his struggles.”

This man was ready to meet His Savior because he changed course and made different choices that honored both His Lord and his wife, while he still had the time to do so. “Let us throw off ­every­thing that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us” (Hebrews 12:1). Sin entangles our feet, puts us out of the competition, and results in losing the race and the prize. So as God’s child, what personal, spiritual, moral, and financial changes do you need to make to get ready to give Him a face-to-face account of your job performance, and to hear “well done”?

“Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.” (Hebrews 13:20-21)

Heaven Tract (25-Pack)

The Law of Rewards (Special Edition)

The Purity Principle

By God’s grace, Nanci and I found we could give away my book royalties and a good portion of our discretionary income, yet still have breathing room for legitimate recreational spending (and what we kept still left us wealthy in comparison with most people in the world). As I say in Money Possessions and Eternity, it’s not what you give but what you keep that determines your lifestyle, but giving away a lot helps what you keep not to become your idol or to rule you.  Things have mass, mass has gravity, and the fewer things we have means greater likelihood that money and our possessions will not hold us in their orbit.

Over the years, we spent reasonable amounts of money on vacations that weren’t “necessary” but served to renew us. Whenever possible, we kept costs low by staying at friends’ places and using frequent flyer miles. Yes, those vacations weren’t essential, yet they contributed to our physical health, and mental and emotional refreshment. I do not regret them; I am thankful we had those times together.

I think that as believers, we should be wrestling with our own wealth in this materialistic, wealth-centered culture and seeking to give more. We shouldn’t assume that just because God has entrusted all this to us, He intends for us to keep it.

Nanci and I sought to not take vacations at the expense of giving generously to God’s Kingdom. Years ago, when our girls were 8 and 10, we received a large book royalty check. In those days, a few checks were coming in, but they were usually pretty small. This one was an exception. As was our custom, we sat down with the girls to discuss the options for what to do with the check. One was a vacation for a couple of weeks in Hawaii, which at the time was a place they’d never been. Another option was to give the money to an upcoming offering at church to fight famine in a very needy part of the world. Nanci and I were touched that the girls didn’t even have to think. They said right away that they wanted to put the check in the offering, and were delighted to give the money away.

One of the blessings that came later was the gift of a free place to vacation in, of all places, Hawaii. Thanks to generous friends, we were able to take the girls there every few years when they still lived at home. And thanks to these same friends, Nanci and I enjoyed many great times on Maui, including three trips there during her four years of cancer. She called Maui her “Happy Place,” and when God chose not to heal her despite our continuous prayers for healing, we trusted Him and realized she would soon be going to her true and eternal Happy Place. I stay at the same place owned by our same friends to this day, for wonderful writing retreats on which I also get lots of time in the water snorkeling, which is not only fun, but sheer worship to explore God’s undersea handiwork.

The danger of me telling this story even now is that it could sound like “because we chose to give to that offering rather than go to Hawaii, God paid us back by giving us many vacations in Hawaii.” But there is no magic formula! God does not owe us paid vacations because we give. It doesn’t work that way. But to Nanci and me, it was nonetheless noteworthy that the very place the girls and we chose not to go so we could instead give to the desperately needy was the exact place God gave back to us many times over. He owes us nothing, we owe Him everything, yet His kindness and generosity are astounding.

By embracing lifestyles that free up money, we can invest in helping others and furthering the progress of the gospel. A vacation can be wonderful, but it is by nature short-lived. Investing in eternity, by contrast, will pay off dividends in the life to come. And yet, we have to be careful to avoid asceticism, believing that money and things are evil. The biblical view is that God has provided for us in His creation a wealth of pleasures and comforts He desires us to enjoy, to His glory: “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31).

Notice the underlined clause God places in the middle of 1 Timothy 6:17-19:

Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.

Surrounded by verses commanding us to give, God tells that He “richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment”! Wow. This is not asceticism. God wants us to enjoy His rich provision, while simultaneously giving generously for the good of others!

When we worship God as God, everything else falls into place—and vacations, hobbies, sports, music, and entertainment can all enrich our lives as intended. (Unfortunately, because we’re fallen creatures and don’t see clearly, we can focus our lives on otherwise legitimate pleasures, turning them into idols. And some “pleasures” and entertainment are indeed harmful and addictive.)

So how do we find the right balance between how much we give, and how much we keep to use for our family’s needs, as well as for God-honoring recreation and enjoyment, like vacations? I believe the tension reflected in that question is healthy. As we continue to grow in Christ, we prayerfully evaluate and seek God’s guidance. But may we always be determined to follow His lead as best we can discern it.  And meanwhile, we should be careful not to judge others, and imagine ourselves better than they are because of our different lifestyle choices. 

Julia Stager Mayo, a beloved former EPM staff member and research assistant, offered these helpful questions to ask in evaluating whether to spend money on a vacation:

Is the purpose of the vacation to:

Get away from day to day life to rest in and refocus on God?
Learn things that will draw you closer to God?
Grow relationships with family or friends?
Experience God’s world in a way that will lead you to worship Him?

Or is it to:

Show-off your wealth and ability to travel to friends/family/co-workers?
Escape from your problems at home instead of addressing them?
Satisfy a fleeting or impulsive desire?

Some more questions to ask might be:

Will this vacation put you in tempting situations?
Is this experience focused on gratifying only your flesh or also your spirit?
Are there ways these same things could be achieved at a lesser cost?
Will spending money on this vacation decrease the money I would have given to my church, missions or others in need?
After praying, reading the Bible and discussing the matter with trusted and mature believers does it still seem like a good idea?

I like what John Piper writes: “Plan your vacation so that it really gives rest and spiritual renewal.” Anticipation of an upcoming vacation or adventure can bring us delight even in the midst of busyness and fatigue. And on a larger scale, God’s assurance of our never-ending happiness in His presence, on the New Earth, should front-load Heaven’s joy into our lives today!

Now that Nanci is home with Jesus, there is such delight in remembering the things we did together all over the world with each other and our children, including the wonderful vacations and missions trips and the ways we served the Lord, gave to God’s kingdom, and invested in eternity together. There is joy for me both in recalling past special memories, and in looking forward to life with Jesus and all who love Him, in the New Heavens and New Earth where God’s wonders and gifts to us will never cease. And always, He will not only be the greatest Giver, but also the greatest Gift!

Finally (and this is a postscript), some will be interested in the fact that years ago in an episode of “The Elephant Room,” James MacDonald and Mark Driscoll took on David Platt, and MacDonald accused him of adhering to “poverty theology.” Then he named John Piper, Francis Chan, and me as embracing the same, which is simply and obviously not true to anyone who knows us. My response to a question about it is here, in which I lead by saying “Well, first of all, I will gladly go down on a ship any day with John Piper, Francis Chan, and David Platt.” Note also an interesting dialogue with David Platt from just last year about that Elephant Room program.

Giving Is the Good Life (Softcover)

Managing God's Money

The Treasure Principle: Revised and Updated