Randy alcorn quotes

If God was the owner, I was the manager. I needed to adopt a steward's mentality toward the assets He had entrusted - not given - to me. A steward manages assets for the owner's benefit. The steward carries no sense of entitlement to the assets he manages. It's his job to find out what the owner wants done with his assets, then carry out his will.

Don't forget that the most effective form of child abuse is giving a child everything they want.

He who lays up treasures on earth spends his life backing away from his treasures. To him, death is loss. He who lays up treasures in heaven looks forward to eternity; he's moving daily toward his treasures. To him, death is gain. He who spends his life moving toward his treasures has reason to rejoice. Are you despairing or rejoicing?

Statistics show that a soldier's chances of survival in the front lines of combat are greater than the chances of an unborn child avoiding abortion. What should be the safest place to live in America - a mother's womb - is now the most dangerous place.

As you go through life, don’t let your feelings-real as they are-invalidate your need to let the truth of God’s words guide your thinking. Remember that the path to your heart travels through your mind. Truth matters.

Give deliberately. Giving is at its best when it's a conscious effort that's repeatedly made.

For the Christian, death is not the end of adventure but a doorway from a wold where dreams and adventures shrink, to a world where dreams and adventures forever expand.

Nothing is more often misdiagnosed than our homesickness for Heaven. We think that what we want is sex, drugs, alcohol, 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. What we really want is the person we were made for, Jesus, and the place we were made for, Heaven. Nothing less can satisfy us.

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."

Give generously. How much is generous? There's no one-size-fits-all answer. If you've never tithed, start there - then begin to stretch your generosity.

I believe the most dangerous misconception is the idea our money and possessions belong to us, not God. Many of our problems begin when we forget that God is the Boss of the universe. But in fact He is more than the boss; He is the owner.

Give regularly. Stewardship is not a once-a-year consideration, but a week-to-week, month-to-month commitment requiring discipline and consistency.

The tithe is God's historical method to get us on the path of giving. In that sense, it can serve as a gateway to the joy of grace giving. It's unhealthy to view tithing as a place to stop, but it can still be a good place to start.

A disciple does not ask, "How much can I keep?" but, "How much more can I give?" Whenever we start to get comfortable with our level of giving, it's time to raise it again.

Whenever I see an unmarried woman carrying a child, my first response is one of respect. I know she could have taken the quick fix without anyone knowing, but she chose instead to let an innocent child live.

Jesus' miracles provide us with a sample of the meaning of redemption: a freeing of creation from the shackles of sin and evil and a reinstatement of creaturely living as intended by God.

Jesus tells you exactly how to get it. Put your money in missions-and in your church and the poor-and your heart will follow.

Teach your children gratefulness. Do all you can to deliver them from our culture's poisonous entitlement mentality.

When Jesus warns us not to store up treasures on earth, it's not just because wealth might be lost; it's because wealth will always be lost. Either it leaves us while we live, or we leave it when we die. No exceptions....Realizing its value is temporary should radically affect our investment strategy.... According to Jesus, storing up earthly treasures isn't simply wrong. It's just plain stupid.

This is one of the great paradoxes of suffering. Those who don't suffer much think suffering should keep people from God, while many who suffer a great deal turn to God, not from him.

When you leave this world, will you be known as one who accumulated treasures on earth that you couldn't keep? Or will you be recognized as one who invested treasures in heaven that you couldn't lose?

God doesn't look at just what we give. He also looks at what we keep.

Give worshipfully. Our giving is a reflexive response to God's grace. It doesn't come out of our altruism - it comes out of the transforming work of Christ in us.

Tolstoy said, 'The antagonism between life and conscience may be removed either by a change of life or by a change of conscience.' Many of us have elected to adjust our consciences rather than our lives. Our powers of rationalization are unlimited. They allow us to live in luxury and indifference while others, whom we could help if we chose to, starve and go to hell.

Give cheerfully. If we're not cheerful, the problem is our heart, and the solution is redirecting our heart, not withholding our giving.

Many [Western Christians] habitually think and act as if there is no eternity. . . . We major in the momentary and minor in the momentous.

A nominal Christian often discovers in suffering that his faith has been in his church, denomination, or family tradition, but not Christ. As he faces evil and suffering, he may lose his faith. But that’s actually a good thing. I have sympathy for people who lose their faith, but any faith lost in suffering wasn’t a faith worth keeping.

There's only one requirement for enjoying God's grace: being broke . . . and knowing it.

But the reason we have this built-in desire for happiness is because we're created in God's image. He wired us to want to be happy. Unfortunately, we sometimes disassociate happiness from its true source, which is God Himself. Satan tempts us by offering us happiness, because he knows that's what we want. But he offers it in the wrong places, at the wrong times, and in the wrong things.

In Illinois a pregnant woman who takes an illegal drug can be prosecuted for 'delivering a controlled substance to a minor.' This is an explicit recognition that the unborn is a person with rights of her own. But that same woman who is prosecuted and jailed for endangering her child is perfectly free to abort her child. In America today, it is illegal to harm your preborn child, but it is perfectly legal to kill him.

Earth is a in-between world touched by both Heaven and Hell. Earth leads directly into Heaven or directly into Hell, affording a choice between the two. The best of life on Earth is a glimpse of Heaven; the worst of life is a glimpse of Hell.

Give more as you make more. Remember: God prospers us not to raise our standard of living, but to raise our standard of giving.

In the midst of prosperity, the challenge for believers is to handle wealth in such a way that it acts as a blessing, not a curse.

Worry is momentary atheism crying out for correction by trust in a good, sovereign God. Suffering breaks self-reliance.

God gives us abundant material blessing so that we can give it away, and give it generously.

If I try to make only enough money for my family' immediate needs, it may violate Scripture. ...Even though earning just enough to meet the needs of my family may seem non materialistic, it's actually selfish when I could earn enough to care for others as well.

For Christians this present life is the closest they will come to Hell. For unbelievers, it is the closest they will come to Heaven.

Someday this upside-down world will be turned right side up. Nothing in all eternity will turn it back again. If we are wise, we will use our brief lives on earth positioning ourselves for the turn.

How we spend our time verifies what we value most: TV, the Internet, or God's Word?

He who lays up treasures in heaven looks forward to eternity

What we love about this life are the things that resonate with the life we were made for. The things we love are not merely the best this life has to offer—they are previews of the greater life to come.

Your children should love the Lord, work hard, and experience the joy of trusting God. More important than leaving your children an inheritance is leaving them a spiritual heritage. If you left your children money they didn't need, and if they were thinking correctly, wouldn't they give it to God anyway? Then why not give it to God yourself, since He entrusted it to you?

You are made for a person and a place. Jesus is the person. Heaven is the place.

Abundance isn't God's provision for me to live in luxury. It's his provision for me to help others live. God entrusts me with his money not to build my kingdom on earth, but to build his kingdom in heaven.

Parents who spoil their children out of 'love' should realize that they are performing acts of child abuse. Although there are no laws against such abuse--no man-made laws anyway--this spiritual mistreatment may result in as much long-term personal and social damage as the worst physical abuse.

The cost of redemption cannot be overstated. The wonders of grace cannot be overemphasized. Christ took the hell He didn't deserve so we could have the heaven we don't deserve.

Tithing isn't the ceiling of giving; it's the floor. It's not the finish line of giving; it's just the starting blocks. Tithes can be the training wheels to launch us into the mind-set, skills, and habits of grace giving.

If we can keep ourselves from interfering with the natural laws of life, mistakes can be our child's finest teachers.

Giving is the safety valve that releases the excess pressure of wealth.

Five minutes after we die, we'll know exactly how much we should have given rather than kept.

Am I getting braver, or just getting accustomed to being terrified?

Tomorrow's character is made out of today's thoughts. Temptation may come suddenly, but sin does not.

When my thirst for joy is satisfied by Christ, sin becomes unattractive.

Materialism is a fruitless attempt to find meaning outside of God. When we try to find ultimate fulfillment in a person other than Christ or a place other than heaven, we become idolaters. According to Scripture, materialism is not only evil; it is tragic and pathetic.

If you're a child of God, you do not just "go around once" on Earth. You don't get just one earthly life. You get another-one far better and without end. You'll inhabit the New Earth! You'll live with the God you cherish and the people you love as an undying person on an undying Earth.

Nothing is wiser than giving first to God, cutting back our expenditures wherever we can, and systematically paying off our debts to others, having placed ourselves through our faithful giving under God's blessing instead of His curse.

Grace never ignores the awful truth of our depravity; in fact it emphasizes it. The worse we realize we are the greater we realize God's grace.

The more you give, the more comes back to you, because God is the greatest giver in the universe, and He won't let you outgive Him. Go ahead and try. See what happens.

Selfishness is when we pursue gain at the expense of others. But God doesn’t have a limited number of treasures to distribute. When you store up treasures for yourself in heaven, it doesn’t reduce the treasures available to others. In fact, it is by serving God and others that we store up heavenly treasures. Everyone gains; no one loses.

Giving jump starts our relationship with God. It opens our fists so we can receive what God has for us.

Grace and truth are spiritual DNA, the building blocks of Christ-centered living.

God comes right out and tells us why he gives us more money than we need. It's not so we can find more ways to spend it. It's not so we can indulge ourselves and spoil our children. It's not so we can insulate ourselves from needing God's provision. It's so we can give and give generously (2 Corinthians 8:14; 9:11)

Countless mistakes in marriage, parenting, ministry, and other relationships are failures to balance grace and truth. Sometimes we neglect both. Often we choose one over the other.

It is by serving God and others that we store up heavenly treasures. Everyone gains; no one loses.

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.

Any concept of grace that makes us feel more comfortable sinning is not biblical grace. God's grace never encourages us to live in sin, on the contrary, it empowers us to say no to sin and yes to truth.

My purpose as a writer is to communicate in such a way as to challenge the thinking of readers and touch their hearts.

God prospers me not to raise my standard of living, but to raise my standard of giving.

Many atheistic books and blogs seethe with anger. Remarkably, the authors do not limit their anger to Christians. They seem most livid with God. I don't believe in leprechauns, but I haven't dedicated my life to battling them. I suppose if I believed that people's faith in leprechauns poisoned civilization, I might get angry with members of leprechaun churches. But there's one thing I'm quite sure I wouldn't do: I would not get angry with leprechauns. Why not? Because I can't get angry with someone I know doesn't exist.

Something nonhuman doesn’t become human by getting older and bigger; whatever is human is human from the beginning.

Cheap grace replaces truth with tolerance, lowering the bar so everyone can jump over it and we can all feel good about ourselves.

The everyday choices I make regarding money will influence the very coarse of eternity.

God loves a great story, and all of us who know Him will recall and celebrate and continue to live in that story for all eternity.

The currency of this world will be worthless at our death or at Christ's return, both of which are imminent.

If we were to gain God's perspective, even for a moment, and were to look at the way we go through life accumulating and hoarding and displaying our things, we would have the same feelings of horror and pity that any sane person has when he views people in an asylum endlessly beating their heads against the wall.

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.

We are all theologians, either good ones or bad ones. I'd rather be a good one. Wouldn't you?

There's a throne in each life big enough for only one. Christ may be on that throne, or money may be. But both cannot occupy it.

There's a timeless truth behind the concept of giving God our firstfruits. Whether or not the tithe is still the minimal measure of those firstfruits, I ask myself, "Does God expect His New Covenant children to give less or more?" Jesus raised the spiritual bar; He never lowered it.

Why ask for your daily bread when you own the bakery?

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

What is good about Good Friday? Why isn't it called Bad Friday? Because out of the appallingly bad came what was inexpressibly good. And the good trumps the bad, because though the bad was temporary, the good is eternal.

Those who know their unworthiness seize grace as a hungry man seizes bread: the self-righteous resent grace.

Not only will we see His face and live, but we will likely wonder if we ever lived before we saw His face!

Shouldn't we suppose that many of our most painful ordeals will look quite different a million years from now, as we recall them on the New Earth? What if one day we discover that God has wasted nothing in our life on Earth? What if we see that every agony was part of giving birth to an eternal joy?

Contrary to common belief, Christian fiction did not begin with Catherine Marshall, Janette Oke, or Frank Peretti.

Too often we assume that God has increased our income to increase our standard of living, when his stated purpose is to increase our standard of giving. (Look again at 2 Corinthians 8:14 and 9:11).

Is It Unloving to Speak of Hell? If you were giving some friends directions to Denver and you knew that one road led there but a second road ended at a sharp cliff around a blind corner, would you talk only about the safe road? No. You would tell them about both, especially if you knew that the road to destruction was wider and more traveled. In fact, it would be terribly unloving not to warn them about that other road.

I detest legalism. I certainly don't want to try to pour new wine into old wineskins, imposing superseded First Covenant restrictions on Christians. But at the same time, every New Testament example of giving goes far beyond the tithe. However, none falls short of it.

If we get it wrong about Jesus, it doesn’t matter what else we get right.

When Paul was taken in chains from his filthy Roman dungeon and beheaded at the order of the opulent madman Nero, two representatives of humanity faced off, one of the best and one of the worst. One lived for prosperity on earth, the other didn’t. One now lives in prosperity in heaven, the other doesn’t. We remember both men for what they truly were, which is why we name our sons Paul and our dogs Nero.

Hell is not evil; it's a place where evil gets punished. Hell is not pleasant, appealing, or encouraging. But Hell is morally good, because a good God must punish evil.

Are we truly obeying the command to love our neighbor as ourselves if we're storing up money for potential future needs when our neighbor is laboring today under actual present needs?

Real gold fears no fire.

The grace that has freed us from bondage to sin is desperately needed to free us from our bondage to materialism.

Ironically, many people can't afford to give precisely because they're not giving. If we pay our debt to God first, then we will incur His blessing to help us pay our debts to men. But when we rob God to pay men, we rob ourselves of God's blessing.

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.

It's a law of life: the tyranny of things.

Because satan hates us, he's determined to rob us of the joy we'd have if we believed what God tells us about the magnificent world to come.

Every kingdom work, whether publicly performed or privately endeavored, partakes of the kingdom's imperishable character. Every honest intention, every stumbling word of witness, every resistance of temptation, every motion of repentance, every gesture of concern, every routine engagement, every motion of worship, every struggle towards obedience, every mumbled prayer, everything, literally, which flows out of our faith-relationship with the Ever-Living One, will find its place in the ever-living heavenly order which will dawn at his coming.

To procrastinate obedience is to disobey God.

It's curious that the Church has become the most tightfisted at the very time in history when God has provided most generously. There's considerable talk about the end of the age, and many people seem to believe that Christ will return in their lifetime. But why is it that expecting Christ's return hasn't radically influenced our giving? Why is it that people who believe in the soon return of Christ are so quick to build their own financial empires--which prophecy tells us will perish--and so slow to build God's kingdom?

But isn't it wrong to be motivated by reward? No, it isn't. If it were wrong, Christ wouldn't offer it to us a motivation.

Christ offers us the incredible opportunity to trade temporary goods and currency for eternal rewards.

Give. Giving affirms Christ's lordship. It dethrones me and exalts Him. It breaks the chains of mammon that would enslave me and transfers my center of gravity to Heaven.

Sin and death and suffering and war and poverty are not natural—they are the devastating results of our rebellion against God. We long for a return to Paradise—a perfect world, without the corruption of sin, where God walks with us and talks with us in the cool of the day.

The opportunities for using our financial resources to spread the gospel and strengthen the church all over the world are greater than they've ever been. As God raised up Esther for just such a time as hers, I'm convinced he's raise us up, with all our wealth, to help fulfill the great commission. The question is, what are we doing with that money? Our job is to make sure it gets to his intended recipients.

I believe the only way to break the power of materialism is first, to see ourselves as stewards that God has entrusted these money and possessions to, and second, to give. Jesus says, "It is more blessed to give than to receive". As long as I still have something, I believe I own it. But when I give it away, I relinquish the control, power, and prestige that come with wealth.

Many Christians dread the thought of leaving this world. Why? Because so many have stored up their treasures on earth, not in heaven. Each day brings us closer to death. If your treasures are on earth, that means each day brings you closer to losing your treasures.

In Heaven, to look into God's eyes will be to see what we've always longed to see: the person who made us for His own good pleasure. Seeing God will be like seeing everything else for the first time.

The conflicting missions of the two armies seemed to have no fog, no gray, only black-and-white clarity. I had lived my life in terms of compromise, rule-bending, trade-offs, concessions, bargaining, striking deals, finding middle ground. In these two great armies, there was no such thing. Good was good, and evil was evil, and they shared no common ground.

Seeking happiness apart from a right relationship God is like trying to turn on a light that's unplugged.

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.

Compassion for the mother is extremely important, but is never served through destroying the innocent.

You and I are characters in God's Story, handmade by Him. Every character serves a purpose.

Give sacrificially. We don't like risky faith. We like to have our safety net below us. But we miss the adventure of seeing God provide when we've really stretched ourselves in giving.

Messin with me, is like wearing cheese underwear down rat alley. Ollie Chandler in Deception

We've fallen for the devil's lie. His most basic strategy, the same one he employed with Adam and Eve, is to make us believe that sin brings fulfillment. However, in reality, sin robs us of fulfillment. Sin doesn't make life interesting; it makes life empty. Sin doesn't create adventure; it blunts it. Sin doesn't expand life; it shrinks it. Sin's emptiness inevitably leads to boredom. When there's fulfillment, when there's beauty, when we see God as he truly is-an endless reservoir of fascination-boredom becomes impossible.

The greatest deterrent to giving is the illusion that this earth is our home.

How can we recognize if we're falling into materialism's trap? Christ's words were direct and profound: "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" . What we do with our possessions is a sure indicator of what's in our hearts. Jesus is saying, "Show me your checkbook, your credit card statement, and your receipts for cash expenditures, and I'll show you where your heart is." What we do with our money doesn't lie. It is a bold statement to God of what we truly value.

What you do with your resources in this life is your autobiography.

By trusting Christ's redemptive work for us, we can enter into what we long for: the happiness found only in God.

As long as I hold tightly to something, I believe I own it. But when I give it away, I relinquish control, power, and prestige. When I realize that God has a claim not merely on the few dollars I might choose to throw in an offering plate, not simply on 10 percent or even 50 percent, but on 100 percent of "my" money, it's revolutionary. If I'm God's money manager, I'm not God. Money isn't God. God is God. So God, money, and I are each put in our rightful place.

Christians are God's delivery people, through whom he does his giving to a needy world. We are conduits of God's grace to others. Our eternal investment portfolio should be full of the most strategic kingdom-building projects to which we can disburse God's funds.

Wealth is a relational barrier. It keeps us from having open relationships.