Sarah’s Reviews > God and Money: How We Discovered True Riches at Harvard Business School > Status Update

Focusing upward (on those with more money) causes us to underestimate the need to be generous. The relative wealth of our local context blinds us to the tremendous needs of those outside our local context.

…pur role in counseling fellow believers in times they may be struggling … “you must model faithfulness, call our faithlessness, and pray for them. But you’re not responsible for changing them. You can’t take over.”

Offering gifts to God while we have unrepentant sin in our lives actually dishonors him (Matt 5:24, Luke 11:42). He wants us to be generous, but only for the right reasons — to honor Him and to serve others

Jesus seems to encourage mindfulness around this issue of effectiveness (Mark 6:4, Matt 10:14). Implicitly, he encouraged maximizing the return in invested time in ministry, by giving more time to places where the Gospel was accepted

(Wealth) is not something we deserve, it is something with which we have been entrusted and we need to use it to change the world, not to make ourselves more comfortable

Saving for retirement is wise in the right context, but overly aggressive accumulation prioritizes personal comfort above our mandate to share the Gospel and the love of Christ with the world

Anything we save ought to be attached to a tangible goal or need…we must weigh the worthiness of different wealth objectives, knowing that the alternative for our money is to give it away for the benefit of the Church or the poor

All savings, at all times, should be held openly before the Lord for His guidance, and perhaps, His instructions to give them away (Luke 18:22)

If you have trouble deciding what counts as giving and what counts as spending youre probably doing it right….it would be far better to spend more on a life that it is invitation to others, generous and hospitable. Than to spend less by becoming insular, isolated, and miserly clipping coupons, tipping sting ly, and cutting yourself off from

Income properly spent brings human fulfillment and joy up to the point where we can fully walk out our calling in life. When taken beyond that point, consumption becomes wasteful, a misappropriation of resources, and a slap in the face of the poor whom God calls us to care for