A Lifestyle Of Generosity

Today we're gonna talk about what Jesus meant by having a good eye or a bad eye, or a healthy eye or an evil eye, and I'll give you a hint. It doesn't have to do with the way your eye looks or ophthalmology. It actually has to do with generosity. Jesus, once again, is gonna give us an investment strategy to lay up treasure first, not on earth, but tomorrow in eternity. Welcome to the Forgotten Jesus Podcast. I'm your host, Adam French, here with Pastor Robby Gallaty and Miss Candy Gallaty. Yes, sir. Diving into it. Talking about our prison ministry. Tell us about how many people tune in to the podcast or the sermons every week on the Pando app? How many subscribers? So we have 40,000 subscribers. Wow. 40,000 men and women in prison. How many prisons? Are subscribed, 649. Wow. They're subscribed to the podcast? 40,000 are. Wow. They're subscribed to our channel. How many people are in prison in America, do you know?

It was 2.5, I think it's 2.3 million because of probation and parole has kinda kicked up. But I'll have to look that up. But then we're in six live prisons or jails, or seven, seven now with Macon. So we're in seven, this is crazy, we have seven campuses, maybe more because one campus could be men and women, so it could be two. But seven prisons right now that have campuses where about 1,200, with those leading and everything, 1,200 people worship with Long Hollow every week. Face to face. Every week, face to face. Face to face. Service, they hear the service invitation, part of the church, unbelievable. So in a year and a half, we're over, we're right at like, was it three, it's almost three million views, people that have seen it on Pando. Last year alone, this podcast was 550,000 views. Wow, just for the podcast alone? Just the podcast. Wow. Just the podcast. People are tuning in for candy, I know they are, they don't care about me and you. Well, we've got. Not all being bad, honey.

The most important thing there is we're at, I think it's three, I sent you the text, but I know we're above 3,000, maybe close to five, salvations. Yeah, no, it's over 5,000. Yeah, so it's over 5,000. So one thing. 5,000 people say, and they can't do it multiple times, so that's the best part. So one thing that they did for us at Pando in our conversation with them, they restarted their whole system and required everybody to get one unique login so that we could track it, because that's one of the things we wanted to track, we want to communicate. That's good, where they at, yeah. And so those are not duplicates. 5,000 salvations is 5,000 salvations. It's one unique person each time. And it's not, you can't get saved every week. You're like, oh, I'll show her this message. It's powerful. And our goal long-term is we want to figure out where our people are listening and watching, especially in prisons, so that we could, because now we have a seminary in one of the prisons we're in, Trousdale. We have 25 guys signed up for theological education right now, so they're learning theology,

New Testament, Old Testament, and then the prayer is they can transfer within the state, request a transfer to another prison. And teach it. And our goal is to send missionaries to go be prisoners that we're raising up to be pastors over pods in prisons across Tennessee, so really cool. It's amazing. Yeah, really cool what God's doing. Hey, listeners, we hope you're enjoying this content, and if you are, we would like you to go ahead and subscribe right now. Also, if you can, share it with a friend and leave a comment below. All right, today, speaking of giving and using your talents for the Lord like that, let's just re-quote Candy, don't store up your treasure in heaven, just for context, and then we'll get to 20, well, let's just do 22 and 24. The eye. Yeah, it's the lamp of the body. Okay, the eye is the lamp of the body, and if the eye is good, then the whole body will be full of light, right? Yep. But if the eye is bad, then the whole body will be full of darkness. But if the light within you is darkness,

how deep is that darkness? For no one can serve two masters, for he will either, am I still going? Every week, I tell you. She always goes, is that right? She's not sure. Okay. For no one can serve two masters? If no one can serve two masters, for he. I don't know if that's authoritative or you're questioning me to confirm that. I'm questioning myself. Okay, go ahead. For he will either. You say it like you mean it. Be confident. For he will either hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted one or despised to the other, because you cannot serve two masters. Cannot serve both God and money, bingo. Okay, so Candy was leaving us last time with a story about Katrina. Yes. And I'll let you kind of recount that, because it is pertinent to the greatest lessons we learned about giving came after Katrina, when God put us to the test. It's one thing to say, God, I'm going to trust you with your money. Then God says, oh really?

Let's see. You ever notice how he does that? God, I give my life to you. I'm going to follow you the rest of my life. All right, let's see what hardship does to you. Let's, you know, I always say, do you? profess the faith you possess, or do you possess the faith you profess? Because a lot of people will profess to have faith in Christ, but they don't really possess it, because the moment things get hard, the moment finances get tight, they're like, ah, I'm out. So God lit us, in a sense, He didn't do it for us, but it was a test right away, eight months after being married, when we committed to put God first in our finances. So here we are, Kandee. So Katrina comes. So Hurricane Katrina comes. We're living in New Orleans. Yep, we evacuate, and which took, I had to convince Robbie to evacuate, because he didn't want to do that, and so. First storm my dad ever evacuated for my entire life. We never left the city, because my dad had a body shot, a collision. No, she said, she was the voice of the Holy Spirit. I said, she said, Robbie, we're leaving. I said, no, we're not, we're not gonna go anywhere. I've never evacuated, you're from Baton Rouge,

I'm from New Orleans, we don't do this. She said, we're leaving. I said, okay, I'll pack. And that was it, we packed up. And thank God we did. My dad had a body, a collision center, and he, and all the guys' tools, you couldn't cover it all, insurance. So what would happen is, this would happen in New Orleans, after a storm would go through, all the looters, you saw this on television, the looters would come through, break into businesses, and nobody could catch them, and they'd steal. So as soon as the storm was over, my dad and I, or my dad and some of his guys would go have to sit at the shop so they wouldn't steal the stuff. So that's why we didn't leave. But again, this was really, my mom said, they were staying, my mom and dad were staying, like, Saturday, the storm thing came Sunday night or Monday. My mom and dad were staying, but my mom said, one of the guys on the news got on, because we'd already left, we went to Baton Rouge, they were staying. Thank God, they would have been in their roof. Right, we evacuated the day before the mandatory evacuation. So eventually a mandatory evacuation was issued, but we left the day before that.

Or Sunday, we left Saturday, I think, because it was a Friday. Yes, we left. I think so. Yeah, gotta go, and we left, and we avoided a lot of the traffic. But a little fun fact, my mom, back in Hurricane Betsy, which was the bad one, this is a true story, my mom, because her family didn't leave, you can't leave, it's very expensive, you gotta leave and travel and hotels, some people, parents couldn't afford it back then, my mom and her family got rescued off the home of her house. The roof. They had eight, 10 feet of water, off the roof by the National Guard. My mom, when she was a little kid, like 10, yeah, a little bitty kid. So she's already, they've already been through this. She knows. She knows, yeah. Anyway, so we left, Hurricane Kaduta comes through. Yeah, and you know, you just, you have no idea what's actually gonna happen, but we had literally just a weekend back. We brought, like I didn't even bring a pair of jeans, because this was Saturday, so we brought a church outfit to wear for Sunday, because we were gonna go to church, wherever we were,

which was my home church. And that was it. Sleeping clothes, yeah, just the same. Like pajamas, one church. When you think it's gonna rain in a couple of days, you come back. Yeah, and I was like, do we take the wedding pictures? She's like, no. And I was like, well, what do we take? You know, like, do we take your golf clubs? No, we don't take anything. And so we literally leave with a little, all the videos of me grunting, I'll leave. With a little overnight bag, that's it. We go to Baton Rouge. And our dog, and our one car. And we ride it out there, and would never go to our home again, like, after that. Never. We went one time. Three months later, we went. Three months later. What happened to the house? Did they just tear it down? It had to be completely gutted. Of course, our, you know, I say luck, but it wasn't, but our, the thing that happened to us was, we were next to an oil refinery, Murphy Oil, and because the flooding was so, so the water, they broke the levees.

They won't admit this, this is a hot take, but they broke the levees. New Orleans is in a bowl, okay? So New Orleans is like literally in a bowl surrounded by levees. Okay, it's all in water. It's all below sea level. And if there was city, they want to keep the city protected at all costs. I get it. So the theory is, and they did this in Betsy, they blow the levee out, and it floods the lower middle class where we were from, you know, Ninth Ward and others. And so that's what we think happened, because we had, at our home, eight feet of water. My parents had 12 feet of water, and it stood for like six, seven days. It didn't go anywhere. It couldn't go anywhere. Six, seven days, it just stood standing. My sister had 15 feet of water. The reason ours was not allowed to go, ours was inhabitable because the oil container lifted up from the water, the barrel, and crude oil, contaminated crude oil, went in all the homes. So when we went back three months later, our house was filled with like a foot. It was like sludge.

Sludge. Still, three months later, bro. So when we walked into the, we walked to the- They just bulldozed them all down. Well, yeah, they took the house down to the- They sent in crews to basically just gut the house, to which, if it could be like redone and not the whole thing demolished. Ours was fully gutted on the inside, redone, and then eventually like sold. But all that to say, in that whole entire situation- So we moved to South Carolina. Yeah, we upped and had to leave, because, I mean, seminary shut down. We lost jobs, I mean, everything was just a mess back then. Just ground zero. You're back to ground zero. And so we literally had whatever money that was in our bank account at the time, because I never- It was less than $1,500 to our name. I lost my job. seminary, lost my job. He was in itinerant ministry, traveling and preaching on the weekends. And he would work at Bob's shop, like to help like pay bills and stuff. Well, that was gone now. And so we're literally in South Carolina with the money that we have in our checking account.

And we're like, what is our life right now? Like I had to go to the store to buy, I'll never forget this, walking into JCPenney's and they had this wall of jeans because I was like, I had no jeans. And like, I need to get a pair of jeans. I walk in and I remember looking at this wall of jeans and just busting out crying, because I'm like, I don't want to do this right now. I've got to try on clothes. Like, I don't want to do this. It's not easy to find jeans. Right? So then I leave because I'm like, I just can't do this. And I mean, months later, obviously I had to start replacing things, but then now I don't have that problem. I moved past it. I walk in, I see a wall of jeans and I'm like, ooh, let me try on. But back then it was really hard. So here's the point. Okay, here's the point. So we, let me just fast forward because this is all good, but here's the point where she's getting to. We are there less than $1,500 to our name. That's all we have. Remember, I'm still in debt when we got married. I mean, I still- And in seminary.

And in seminary and credit card badge from drug addiction years ago and in seminary. I've got no job now. She's got no job. We're living in a trailer. Thank God we had it in South Carolina and a pastor, Don Wilton, who was pastor of First Spartanburg, who was a friend's father, took me on staff with the other students there and gave us a salary. It was a modest salary, but it was enough to at least give us something. And I remember us being in that trailer. We have nothing but our dog, less than $1,500 in the bank account to our name. And the bill still came in. You got to remember, it was still car insurance, health insurance, life insurance, all that stuff's still coming in. School loans, they don't care. And we got on our knees in that room and by the bed. And we said, Lord, we, regardless of what happened to us, we're going to still be faithful to tithe and give back to you. Whatever, which that really is a test because you could say you can do it when you have money. We had nothing. And we said, whatever comes in, 10% right off the top comes back to you.

Okay, not making this up. They did an article. So the news media came in. We were like walking testimonies because the other guy, the other staff members that Don put on staff were seminary students from South Carolina, from his church. We were like the only ones who were born and raised in Louisiana. And I was from, I mean, we lived in Chalmette at the ground zero of the, so we were walking, breathing testimonies. So we had news stories about us. We had, we were on every television show. We were in the paper. What that did was that got the word out to the community. So people saw us and they recognize us. I'm walking the next week, I'm not making this up, out of the Barnes and Noble. And a guy says, Hey, is your name, are you from New Orleans? I was like, yes. And he's like, is your name Robbie? I was like, yes. He said, I saw you on the news. I was like, call him one second. I'll be right back. He goes to his car and comes back with his checkbook.

He said, God told me to write you a check for $1,500. Okay, you ready for this? And God did that for the next two and a half months. Over and over again. Over and over and over. I mean, I had ran, I must've had four or five random people. People saw me on, I preached for Don one Sunday. People started giving, one couple from the middle of Greer, South Carolina, middle of nowhere. This people even, the way we got to know them, I don't even know who they are, but God knows. This couple said, God told us to tie or give you $30 a month for you to get yourself back. They sent us that for two years. We moved back to Louisiana and everything. This faithful couple. So that's when we learned this lesson. And if you're listening, if you don't put God first, you never get that. And you can't cross the threshold. I get this. But God told us, you can never out give me

and I will always take care of you for the rest of your life. Period. Take it to the bank. And what God showed us is what this passage says. The eye is the lamp of the body. And here's what he's saying here. The eye is basically how you give, okay? Generosity. To have a good, back then in that culture, to have a good eye was to have a healthy eye. To have a bad eye was to have a single eye, as the King James says, or an evil eye, or a selfish eye, or a stingy eye, okay? Now learn this from Dwight Pryor, from the JC Studies Ministry, one of my rabbi's mentors. He said, for Jesus, a single eye and an evil eye are not superstitious notions. Like, oh, he's got a single eye, or an evil eye, you know, one eye, man. No, it's not a mystical idea, nor is it a physical characteristic. They are moral characterizations of a generous person,

as opposed to a stingy person. Here's what he's saying. The usage is found in the Hebrew Bible and in Jewish tradition. A good eye is an idiomatic Hebrew term for generosity or a bountiful giving. Let me read you Psalm 22, verse nine. Whoever has a A bountiful eye, it says, or a good eye, will be blessed. For he shares his bread with the poor. Proverbs 23 and 6. Do not eat the bread of a man who has an evil eye. A stingy eye. This is kind of like Scrooge from Charles Dickens' Christmas story. Scrooge is a man who basically gives us a picture of an evil eye. And here's what Charles Dickens says about Scrooge. No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle. Even the blind men's dogs appeared to know this man. And when they saw him coming, they would wag their tails as though they said, the dogs. No eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master. So what is Charles doing? What is Charles Dickens doing? He's showing us how a person lives with a stingy eye, or a selfish eye, or an eye centered on them. The joke about America, I always say, is this. Most Americans get all they can, can all you get,

and sit on the lid. That's the American culture. Get all you can, can all you get, sit on the lid. A.W. Tozer said, the streets of gold do not have too great appeal for those who pile up gold here on Earth. Why do I want to go to heaven for streets of gold when I got all the gold? So that's what it means to have a stingy eye, or a good eye. Now, think about this. Jesus leads into, OK, you're either one or the other. You can't be both, OK? And if you're listening, you can't be both. Therefore, you can't serve two masters. You can't be two people, right? You're either what? Hate one, or love the other, or love one, or be devoted to one, and despise the other. And what he's saying is, you can't have two masters at one time. Money, right now, listen, the way you spend your money, not just save it, but spend your money, determines the devotion you have to the Lord, OK? So money is connected to devotion. So look at how you give to the Lord. Is it something you're excited to do, or is it something you despise to do? Is it something you cheerfully give to, or is it something you don't want to do? Martin Lloyd-Jones was the best example of this.

He tells the story of a farmer years ago. Martin Lloyd-Jones is the predecessor to R.T. Kendall, who's a mentor and a church member of Long Hollow. He's a fan favorite at Long Hollow, church member favorite, Dr. R.T. Kendall. But he said, the farmer went to his wife one day, very happy. She said, honey, the cow just had twins, two calf, twin calves, one red and one white. She was all excited. And he said, you know, I've been led by the Lord to dedicate one of these calves to him. One of the calves we're going to give to the Lord. We're going to raise them together, though. And then when the time comes to sell them, we will keep money from one of the calves, and then we'll give the money we raised from the other calf to the Lord. Well, his wife naturally said, which one are we going to give to the Lord? Can we say now? And he said, no. We'll decide when the time is right. Not now. We'll let time decide. Several months later, he came in the kitchen. He's very sad. And he's like, golly, you're never going to believe this, but something tragic happened. She said, what?

He said, man, I got bad news. The Lord's calf is dead. But she said, wait a minute. I thought we did decide which calf was the Lord. He said, oh, yes. No, I'd already determined it's going to be the white one, and we're going to. And that's how we give to the Lord. Here's the problem if you listen. Unfortunately for you, the Lord's calf always dies. Always dies. Unless you decide beforehand. Because there's all, oh, I always have to pay this bill. Oh, I have to buy tire. That's always going to happen unless you have a purpose in your heart on the top, from the top. Now, has the Lord tested us through the years? Of course he has. Of course he has. But he's never let us down. And here's what he's basically saying. He's saying, just like a slave obeys the master, you are enslaved to the Lord. Not under power and control and domineering. You serve the Lord out of pleasure because God has set you free from the bondage of sin. And so you can't say, I love the Lord, and not be faithful to give to the Lord financially, is basically what he's saying. Hey guys, let me make you aware of two podcasts,

if you're not already aware. One is, I started not long ago, at Pastor Robbie Gallaty. You can just search my name, R-O-B-B-Y, Gallaty, where I go deeper, like we go on this podcast, in the Hebraic roots of Jesus and the Jewishness of the scriptures. If you're interested in that, you can tune in. I'm going through a series in Revelation. Again, for those who've already been there, but I'm taking my time with the series and unpacking it from a Jewish perspective. If you haven't checked out Adam, our host of our podcast, The Forgotten Jesus, he has a podcast for recovery, for those who are seeking restoration, rejuvenation, those who are just trying to be encouraged after life of sobriety. or A Life of Sobriety and Addiction at Pastor Adam French, if you're interested in that channel as well. If you haven't subscribed or liked to the channels, let me encourage you to do so. Yeah. I was gonna say something Josie always, she taught me this, and it took me a while to learn it, my wife. She said, if you have to give, then you always give. Right, if you have it, you give it. And so the easier part for me being in the ministry was to tithe, right?

Oh yeah, well, I'm always gonna be able to tithe because God's always gonna provide, right? The other things that are not always so easy to give is when a need comes up, right? And she's so good at this. A need comes up, she's like, oh, if you have to give, then you give. Yeah. And then- That's good. Have it to give, you give it. Yeah. And every time that seems to happen, somebody would say, oh, we get a little head, you know, we got an extra $2,000. I mean, you don't believe it. They didn't pay me $200, they paid me $400. Yeah, and I already know what I'm spending this on, baby. This is gonna be awesome. And then, you know, there's somebody less fortunate comes up and we find out about a need. Mm, always. And it's just like, and she's like, oh, you know, let's give. And I'm like, wait a second, you know? But what it convicted me on was, it showed me, it's a reflection of how my relationship with God looks like. It's like, think about this. If I'm reading out, if I'm spending time with God

out of fear instead of the love that I have for him, or if I'm tithing because, you know, it's the rule that I'm supposed to follow. Or if I'm tithing out of gratitude. Yeah. Right, and so there's a cheerful, we talk about cheerful giving is very different than giving, okay, here's my last dollar. Yeah, I have to. Yeah, I have to. Right. You know what I mean? And I think that's where it taught me was like, I was just following this because this was a Christian rule or Christian principle, but that's what the Pharisees did. They followed the rules because that was right for God, not because it penetrated their heart. Right. And when the act, when the desire of generosity touches your heart, it doesn't just change the way your checkbook looks, right? It changes the way you operate. It changes who you are completely. Totally, totally. Like just with the situation we had with opening our home and stuff. Before I would have been, oh, you know, we can't do this, we gotta, we don't have a room. But now I just let it go because really, that's my wife's heart.

She's, we have to give. We've got extra food. We do. Well, but think about Josie. I mean, you're the same way like me too, but think about Josie. She has been the beneficiary of the grace of God and she knows it just coming from Zambia and here and just how God has blessed you and your family. And I always tell people, it takes one to know one, meaning when you receive grace like we have, it's easier to give grace to other people because you realize it's undeserved, unmerited. You don't deserve it, you know? And giving, it becomes just exciting because you just love to give to people. I probably shouldn't say this. I've never shared this publicly and I don't think anybody knows this story, but I'm gonna share it because I think people need to know it. He would never want me to share this, but I'm gonna share it anyway. When David Platt, David Platt's my mentor from years ago and I learned so much from David about preaching and evangelism and just taking care. And David's very generous, one of the most generous people I know. When David wrote Radical, I don't think anybody knows this story, so I'm breaking news right here to tell you,

but I'm telling you for a reason. When David wrote, I don't think you'd mind me saying it. I'm not saying it for him, I'm saying it because it needs to be said. So David wrote Radical, the book that really everybody found out about. I mean, before David was David Platt, he was a pastor at Brook Hills. And I remember him writing Radical and I had listened, which is crazy. I was finishing my doctorate at New Orleans, so I would drive home and David was the preacher I would listen to. So I would drive home or fly home and then I would listen all the way home to David's sermon series on Radical when he preached it. It was a series before it was a book. And I just remember many times crying on the plane home, just really wrecked me. So when he told me he was gonna write it in a book, I was pretty excited. I still have the pre-copy of Radical signed in my office. I just cherish one of the cherished books I have from David. But when Radical was coming out, David told me something that really blew me away. We met, I think I went up to Brook Hills and we were talking and he said, the Lord told me to not take a dime from Radical. Now this is before it became anything. So we don't know, like you write a book,

you don't make a ton of money from book writing anyway, it's more of a labor of love. But David said the Lord told me to set up a ministry called Radical. This is years ago. We're talking now 2010, 2009, that's how long ago this is, 2009, I think. And he said, God told me to start, every dime that comes in, to give away, okay? Now, I don't wanna tell you the money because I don't know all the money, but I will tell you it is a lot. Radical became a. number one New York Times bestseller. So just imagine the number and multiply it times 10 in your mind, okay? I've never forgotten this. I happened to see him at a conference or something, or maybe we were at the SBC back then when he was there. And I remember him coming to me and I said, man, can you believe what Radical's done? And he was quick to say, the reason the Lord has blessed Radical the way it has, I think is because he took nothing. Nobody knows this, but he took no money from Radical. And I remember seeing him giddy like a child on Christmas day saying, I'm about to give away X number of hundreds of thousands of dollars to bless orphans and sex traffic children.

And this dude was, and it affected me as a new pastor, young pastor, and I was like, wow. He's not talking about, oh, I get a new car or man, I'll get to buy this, I'm traveling. No, I get to help and be a conduit. Well, that affected us. And I don't wanna go into our story and make it about us, but it affected the way I did ministry after that. And it showed me that if you want to have something that outlasts you, then you have to be generous. You have to have an open hand. Think of it this way. There's close-handed Christians and open-handed Christians. We'll finish with this. A close-handed Christian is, once you get something, you close your hand. If you do this visual at home, if you close your hand right now and you take the little bit of money you have, if God comes along with this cup full of money and he went, hey, I wanna give you some money, you can't receive the money because your hand is closed with what you already have. So God said, oh, I'll give it to somebody else with an open hand, so he bypasses you. But I've always tried to live with open hands, meaning when God gives me something, us, we try to keep giving it as a conduit. And you know what he's doing?

He's looking to see if he can trust you with little so that down the road, he can entrust you with more. And once he finds that, man, I can trust this guy, this girl, this family, let's pour out the flame. So people look and they, oh man, I wish I had with Robbie or Adam or Candy or Rob, well, can God trust you? And he's looking to see if he can trust you when no one's looking to see if he can entrust you down the road with when everyone's looking. The best story on giving is John Wesley, I'll close it, what you gonna say? I was just gonna say there was a quote that I used to keep on a sticky note. It may still be there in my checkbook. And it said, don't hold in your heart what you can hold in your hand. And so the point was not to like treasure something that you could just hold here. Tangible. Yeah, that doesn't like go on before you or whatever. I'm gonna have to see if it's in there. If it's in there, I'm gonna snap a picture of it so that we can post it in the show notes. It was, it's literally on a sticky note that's like been in my checkbook, if it's still there for years and years, but it was just a principle of like, not hanging on to the things that- Cause if you can hold it in your hand,

it will fade, it will fall away. Yeah. I got a question. Do you, I was thinking about, I've been thinking about Acts 2 because you started the series last week with, you know, the local New Testament church. And it talks about in there how they gave, whatever needs they gave. There was no like 1%, 2%. It was like, oh, you, you guys lost. They met the need. They met the need. And, you know, I'm just wondering if you can answer this. Do you think that's one of the, obviously God's plan to share the gospel is one of them, but number two, do you think that's why the church, which started with a few people in Acts 2, verses 41 through 49, has now spread all across the country, all across the world, because of the generosity of the people? I mean, that is the picture of the church. Yeah. You're talking, we're talking individually here, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that is the church. The church, once we come to God with our hands like this, and we give the church, the church says, that's how you always say,

you don't get too long hollow. You get through. You get through. So all of our tithes are going to meet the needs of the people around us. Yes. It's like, this is how God is meeting tangible needs of believers, non-believers, lost, like all across the, how's he doing that? By this choice, this decision that we make. It's not just investing in your own eternal value, like your crown. You're inverting the spirit of the kingdom, the church. That's the model of the church. A hundred percent. Yeah, because your money, if you're a giver here at Long Hollow, your money's going towards people that are in the prison. It's going to missionaries all over to unreached people groups. Like it's in hunger and somnor. It's like your money is, your tithe, your giving is going to these really crucial ministries to the least of these, you know? And hopefully that's happening at other churches too. Like there's ways that that's happening. Yeah, you gotta move your mindset from what's the least amount I have to give to what's the most amount I get to give. It's different between I have to and I get to.

I will say too, last thing here, which this is just, you said something about like being joyful, you know, like in giving or whatever. And like, my goal is to be, I don't even know if I should say this or not, but one of the top givers at Long Hollow. I don't know if I'll ever know that, but like, I am like, I want to be like, I want us to be a family who is one of the top givers, like, because we care that much. And I mean, obviously, you know, you would hope a pastor would also model that for his people and no one would ever know what we give, but it's like, I know. And like, I just, I'm like, I want to be like top 10, you know, like giver. That's a great goal to have though. She's excited. Yeah. Yeah, no. And that's awesome. And we, and you know, great book title, top 10. Yeah. Well, you just, you just hit on a nerve. I wasn't going to say this because you touched on a nerve. I would say, sadly, the hardest, the hardest group to, to, to justify giving to the Lord probably is, is those in ministry. And here's what I mean, because here's what people in ministry do. Watch this. They think it's very easy to think well, and you have a ministry like me. It's very easy to think, well, I give to the Lord with my time. What are you talking about? Look at what I give to the Lord with my, and we can say that. And nobody works harder, I would say than us. And I know how hard you work and how hard I work. We're always working. I mean, it never gets off for us. So I'm always creating and planning and preaching and teaching and writing, whatever.

So you could say, well, look, I'm giving you my time. I don't have to give you my treasure or my, my money. And what happens is, and I know this from church staffs, some of the staff give little to nothing to the Lord, because they'll say, well, I give my time to the Lord. That's not what the Lord's talking about here. That's not what he's talking about. If Jesus would say, oh, I'm not talking about you disciples. I'm talking about these crowd. No, no. He's talking to the disciples. The sermon of the mount is written to the 12th. I mean, he's spoken to the 12th, spoken to the ministers, the crowds listening. Yeah. The crowd's listening. So I would say brother, pastor, leader, Christian leader, women's minister. Listen to me. God want God speaking to you about this giving generously to the Lord, because here's the thing. You're not going to go to hell for it. You're not going to, you know, but you will miss out on a blessing. That's the thing you miss out on the blood. John Wesley was the one who taught me the most about this to plant and Wesley, John Wesley. We just went to England last year. We went to his house and saw where he prayed and everything. Um, the story goes, John Wesley was in his home and it just got some money from preaching and someone, uh, gave him a generous offering. And he was looking at his room, trying to figure out what paintings he loved art and trying to figure out what paintings to decorate his house. And, uh, at that time, a knock at the door came and there was a maid who came, it was

a cold winter day. And he noticed that this woman knocking on the door for help did not have, uh, any kind of, uh, coat or jacket. She just had a thin linen gown, uh, on her. And, uh, John Wesley recent his pocket to buy, to give this lady some money for the coat and realize he had spent it on pictures. Didn't have a lot of money to give her. It was really menial. And so he didn't have much left. And when he said, I'm sorry, this is all I have. He closed the door and he said, the thought struck him at that moment. The Lord was not pleased with the way I was spending his money. And he asked himself this question. Will my master say to me on that day, well done, good and faithful Stuart or servant. Stuart is another way to say it. You have adorned your walls with the money, which might have screened or protected this poor woman from the cold old justice. Oh, mercy. Are these pictures, not the blood of this poor maid? Wow. What changed his life? That incident led him shortly thereafter. He went to go meet with the Moravian missionaries are, and you know, it changed his life and the motivation of his life changed from 1731 on John Wesley decided he was going to put a cap on his income. And so the first year his income was 30 pounds. Okay. 30 pounds back then, uh, which was a decent living back then. He decided that he was going to live off of 28 pounds and give the rest away.

So he gave two pounds away, kept 28. The next year, God, by his grace, doubled his income, made 60 pounds. He lived off of 28 pounds still and gave 32 pounds away for the ministry and the work of the Lord. Third year, God increases his income again, as God always does to 90 pounds. He kept 28 pounds, still live off the same salary and gave 62 pounds to the Lord. In the fourth year, he received 120 pounds. He decided to give himself a little increase. He decided to live off of 30 pounds and he gave 90 pounds away. Over the course of his life, he made over 1400 pounds at the end of it. His income had raised to 1400 pounds and he lived off of 30 to 32 pounds. Leonard Ravenhill, great revenge evangelist revivalist commented on the life of John Wesley and I read it to you. It's such a good quote. He said when Wesley died, he left a handful of books, a faded Geneva gown that he had pre-sent all over England, six silver spoons someone had given him and six, one pound. that were to be given, this is what he left behind, to be given to the men who would carry his casket. That's all he left, six pound notes, six silver spoons, a handful of books, and a Geneva gown. And there was something else, what was it? What else did he leave? Oh, I forgot, the Methodist Church. This man could have died a rich, famous television preacher. Sure, he made money. He built orphanages, though, with the money. Sure, he made money. He printed Bibles with the money. Sure, he made money.

He compiled, with his brother, Charles the Methodist, hymn book, and he built orphanages, and he died worth about $30. But what did he leave behind? He printed Bibles. He printed hymn books. He financed missionaries all over the world. And Ravenhill closes and says, that's the way you spend your money. You think of the reward John Wesley got. Why, in God's name, do you think it says, don't lay up for your treasure on earth, lay up for your treasure in heaven? And so the question I wanna close this is this. Not, what will you leave behind? The question is, what are you sending ahead? And John Wesley did both. He not only sent ahead a treasure, but he left behind a ministry and a movement that has outlasted him. Amen. Powerful. So good. Wow, powerful. So, how are you spending and investing your money? Yeah, and so if you don't, and if that's something that's not a part of your life, I would say, first step is to pray. Start with something. Start somewhere.

Now, give somewhere. Pray and listen to the Lord. If you don't go to Long Island, give somewhere. You gotta give somewhere. Powerful. Powerful episode. Thank you so much. And again, if you're consuming this content consistently, or if this is your first time, if you've shared this with someone that you know, subscribe, like, or comment. It helps us get more biblical content out about the forgotten Jesus. And share it with a friend as well. Absolutely. Share it with a friend. Thank you for tuning in to Forgotten Jesus.