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Key Bible Verse: Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have (Hebrews 13:5 NIV). Bonus Reading: 1 Timothy 6:6-10

My dad spent most of his life working really hard to make money. But then, at age 60, he made a tactical error. My mom and I were going to a church service, and he decided to come along. Something connected with my dad that day, and when the priest gave an altar call, he went forward and began to follow Jesus.

For the first time in his life, he began giving. In a rare sharing of his personal life, he told me, "Kevin, I've started to tithe, and it's been a great adventure."

Dad died from a heart attack at age 70. At the funeral home visitation, a woman I'd never seen came up to me and said, "You don't know me, but I was in a bad marriage; my husband was beating me, and I needed to get out to save my life. But I didn't know what I'd do to support myself. Your dad paid for me to go to junior college and get a degree, so I could be a dental hygienist. He paid for the whole thing, and nobody else knew about it. Now I have a job, and I'm making it. Your dad literally saved my life."

If my dad had kept trying to be like John D. Rockefeller, he'd have died with a lot of money, but not a lot of love. Instead, he took a risk. He tried to [put today's Key Bible Verse into practice].

—Kevin Miller in PreachingToday.com

My Response: Do I agree that generosity involves risk-taking? Why or why not?

Thought to Apply: We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give. —E. Duane Hulse

Adapted from our sister website PreachingToday.com (5/24/08).

Copyright © 2008 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.
Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity.

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Prayer for the Week

Teach me, Lord, to give more like You do: ungrudgingly, freely, lavishly.

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