I will live a life of generosity.
Have you begun to figure out
what these 12 I wills are all about?
They are about becoming a mature disciple of Jesus.
In the ancient world,
a disciple was a person who followed
a master philosopher.
They would travel with them
and learn to talk like them.
They would dress like them.
They would eat like them.
And if they were successful,
they would become a living master copy of the master.
This is where my little slogan
"making master copies of Jesus the icon of the Father comes from."
Jesus is the perfect image of the Father.
He said that if we have seen him,
we have seen the Father.
And Jesus also prayed
that we would be one with him
as he is one with the Father.
And if this happens,
everyone will know you are his disciple.
In other words,
If you look like Jesus,
you will look like the Father.
And everyone will know
when they meet you
that you are a disciple of God,
because you look like God.
And there is no one
more generous
than God.
British actors will often compliment
their fellow actors
by saying someone is very generous.
In fact I think this is one of the highest
compliments actors give another actor.
What they mean
is that this actor is not
in the play for themselves.
They are not stealing the scene
or becoming the center.
The play is the thing.
And so this actor will give other
actors their moment,
the space on the stage to shine,
and the best lines.
And the most amazing thing when you work
with this kind of performer,
you discover that they really know their craft.
The generous ones,
again and again
were the best of their generation.
When you know who you really are,
and really are secure in your sense of who you are
you can be generous.
Whenever we talk about generosity,
we are talking about poverty.
If you operate out of poverty,
you think are unable to give,
to serve,
or to let go.
Jesus put it this way,
the greatest is the one who serves.
The person who enters into virtuous serving
is the greatest.
You are able to lay things down.
My first traveling ministry gig
was in 1989.
It was in Shinglehouse, Pennsylvania,
at a little country church.
I was given a room to stay
with an elderly couple.
They were wonderful, prayerful people.
They were very kind to me,
and after dinner,
I was shown my room.
They had a humble home,
in fact,
I think they lived in a house trailer.
The room they gave me was very nice,
with a double bed,
and my own bathroom.
On my last morning with them,
before church on Sunday,
I got up early,
and discovered,
that this couple,
who were in their late seventies,
had given up their bed for an eighteen year old,
and had slept on the living room floor.
I have walked with giants of the faith.
When you know who you are in Christ,
and Jesus is living in you,
you begin to realize the old saying is true:
You cannot outgive God.
I worked with another old preacher,
in Akron.
He had a special bank account
called "Pennies for Jesus."
More than once he wrote me an odd check from
that account,
like "$62.49"
He told me one day
that he gave something away every day.
I took that advice to heart,
and I began doing the same thing,
giving something away every day.
One of the things you discover when you give
every day,
is that the Kingdom of God
is like a lake or a river.
There are lots of resources in the Kingdom,
and if you get into the Kingdom flow,
God will give you things
and you learn very quickly,
that nothing really belongs to you.
It is yours to use.
And if you really are walking with Jesus,
that thing you think is precious,
Jesus might say,
"Someone over here needs that more than you."
And many times I have learned
that the Lord might say to me "give that person something."
And afterward I discover that what I gave away
was an answer to their prayer.
Living by faith has taught me alot about how generosity
is a means of supply in the Kingdom.
A couple times in my life
someone has come up to me and said,
"God told me to give you some money.
I don't agree with you and you living by faith,
and so I am not going to do it.
And I thought I should tell you so."
Other times we have prayed for things,
and the answer did not come,
and we asked God what was happening.
The Lord said that the person is delayed
or disobedient.
The Body of Christ is a real body.
There are places in the body where there are blood clots.
The life doesn't flow.
Poverty is the biggest obstacle to the flow,
and a poverty mindset
can keep you from experiencing blessing.
I have quoted Graham Cooke many times,
and how he describes poverty.
Poverty is not a lack of resources,
poverty is a lack of possibilities.
I describe it another way.
When I work with artists,
poverty is "the rock in the road."
I would become a full-time artist,
but I need _____ in order to do it.
Artists, creative people,
and especially writers
are very creative in filling in the blank.
That blank is a self-limiting excuse.
Many times I have heard creative people
tell me they will follow God
or pursue their career
after they have made enough money.
You will never make enough money.
And many people forget that the Bible says
that your gift will make a way for you.
God puts things in you
to make money for you.
The only reason I am not making money
from my art right now
is that God told me not to.
I have always been able to sell a painting,
paint a mural,
pick up a side job,
and make a thousand dollars here or there,
from my art.
The issue is not that artists are supposed to starve.
The issue is artists believe that they should starve.
One time I traveled with a woman who hunched over and put her arm
around her dinner plate when she was eating.
She did this in some posh situations.
I discovered that in her large family,
her brothers and sisters would steal her food.
And so she ate like a bit of savage,
fast, and on guard.
A lot of us live our lives like someone is going to steal our dinner.
That's poverty.
There is this apocryphal story
that you can catch a monkey
by putting some food in a jar.
When the monkey puts his hand in
and grabs the food,
he will not be able to get his paw out.
And he is stuck.
The image of poverty
is a clenched fist.
The clenched fist,
the belief that I have to hold on tight
and not let go
because it might not be there tomorrow,
keeps many people from walking into the fullness of the kingdom.
Money has nothing to do with poverty,
but how you think about money will reveal a poverty mindset.
You can't gently grow out of poverty.
Lust and Poverty both require a ruthless attitude.
The only way to get rid of poverty is not tolerate it.
(ad lib)
A few years ago when I was overseas,
the bank account dropped,
and I was way below what I needed that month.
I began to panic,
and God said something interesting:
"Fear not.
There is more where that came from."
When I was in college,
I spent a summer overseas on the mission field.
On the last day of the mission,
someone in the church
gave each one of us on the team
a little envelope.
Inside the envelope was a brand new $100 bill.
I think that was the second time I ever saw
a $100 bill,
and it was big thing,
coming from a foreign country and a different currency.
When I got back to the states,
I was very excited that I had money to buy my books
for that semester of college.
I was working my way through school,
and really didn't have any extra cash.
The Sunday before I went back to school,
God asked me to put the $100 bill in the offering plate.
At first I resisted.
I did put it into the plate,
in the little envelope.
I couldn't bear to see the $100 bill again.
No book money.
Sniff, sniff.
The next day my parents took me back to school and dropped me off.
I went to register for classes,
and when I was almost to the front of the line,
someone came and tapped me on the shoulder.
I learned that my financial aid was denied,
and I also had a balance from the last semester.
I would have to go home.
I was devastated.
I was working my way through school,
and I had four jobs.
Leaving meant the end of the road,
and possibly the end of my goal to get to seminary.
Not knowing what to do,
I went to the financial aid office.
The head of financial aid sat down with me
and looked over everything.
"You are in the pre-seminary track, right?"
Yes, I said.
"Why didn't anyone ever tell you about the
Lee Christian Service Grant?" he asked.
There was a grant for students who were heading to seminary,
and it was the form of a loan that would be forgiven
for each year you served in active ministry.
It was designed for students like me
so we wouldn't have to take on debt.
I walked out of that office with a full ride.
The next two years were paid for, in full.
Everything.
I was able to give up three of my four jobs.
The next time God asked me to give away something,
it was $500.
I did hesitate,
but I let go.
And just recently,
the Lord asked me to give $1000 to another ministry
out of the money we saved for New York.
I didn't hesitate.
It is not mine.
There is more where that came from.
And there will always be enough.
You just have to listen to the Lord,
and do what he tells you.
And when we give,
we are releasing and unlocking the real flow
of God's resources.
When the ordination process in the Episcopal and Anglican church
became an abusive power game,
it had a big impact on my life.
Asbury did not have a decent financial aid department.
And I left with student loan debt.
Because I was not credentialed by the denomination,
and my professional training was only ministry,
I had a very hard time finding a decent job.
Eventually that debt began to be unmanageable,
and eventually,
after deferring payments and making minimum payments,
the interest began to compound.
I had a house payment,
with no house.
And then God told me to live by faith,
no job,
and no fundraising.
That will make you break out in a rash.
One day I asked the Lord what to do.
Really, listen to the Lord and do what he tells you.
That is the only real advice that works.
God said,
keep sending in the papers,
do what you need to do keep the account current.
And so about ten years,
I sent the papers in
for the income contingent payment plan.
For the record,
my income contingent payment was zero.
The interest kept growing.
And when I shared this with a friend,
they were very angry with me
and said God never told me that.
I am not being a good Christian steward.
And then Covid happened,
and they suspended all student loan payments.
I was locked down in London,
and I honestly didn't know what I should do next.
When I went on the government website,
they wouldn't let me do anything.
Let me tell you,
when you have a big debt,
or you have a poverty mindset
where you believe it all depends on you to fix it,
or you have to make it happen somehow
and hope God might bless it,
that financial pressure and that financial burden
is always there.
Poverty is like living your life inside a vice.
You are always under it,
feeling the squeeze.
Last January
I received an alert from my bank,
someone had tried to buy a Mac with my debit card.
I needed to close everything,
get new cards,
and they said I needed to check my credit score.
Yikes, no thanks.
I just want you to know,
I have no credit score.
Living this way for Twenty years,
there was not enough information to create a score.
But there was one really interesting thing
on the credit score.
My student loans had been forgiven.
I listened to God,
and sent all those papers.
The government saw that as a payment
even though it was minimal, or nothing.
And because I did that for twenty years,
the balance was forgiven.
There is always enough.
There is always a solution.
And you don't have to hang on tight.
You can let go.
A life of generosity
is a life of open hands,
and the belief
that you know who you are,
and that you know your Father is good,
and he is the source of infinity resources.
So many people I meet in the church,
in ministry,
and in the arts,
are in it for themselves.
And even those who preach and teach on giving
often talk about it
in terms of you give in order to get.
You won't be blessed unless you give x, y, and z.
That's really selfish.
No.
The real path of blessing
is to be like Jesus.
You give as Christ gave to you.
Yes, some of this is money.
Some of it is time.
And most of all,
it is love.
I will live a life of generosity.
Listen to the Lord and do what He tells you
Our message is the ministry. So don't just listen to this teaching. Do it.
This week, find a quiet place each day, take your notebook, and ask the Lord what He wants you to give. Give something away every day — money, time, attention, or a kindness — as He leads. Do that for seven days and write down what you notice.
Most people who actually do this start hearing from God in less than a month. Seven days is enough to know something has moved. Your inner life determines your creative output, and this is where the inner life begins.
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