living room furniture 0 finance

clemson had a pretty good day toodidn't they? and south carolina didn't lose as bad as they were supposed to so it wasa pretty good day all the way around. let's pray. lord, we thank you. fatheras a group we now do what your word says we come boldly before your throne withour petitions. father you know i can do these talks by myself, but they sure are betterwhen you do them. so we just ask you invade this time and you own this time and youredeem this time with your spirit. in jesus name, amen. how many of you grew up like i did: notrich? i grew up in antioch, tennessee a suburbof nashville and it was not the poor

end of town but it sure wasn't the rich end oftown. just workin folk, you know what i'm talking about. my dad thought work was averb, he didn't think it was management theory. so when we went off to college while was going through four years ofschool we worked 40 to 60 hours a week some of y'all worked when you were in college.how many of y'all worked when you were in college? you know what i'm talking about. and none of youdied from it, the ones that died aren't here so... these days they call that child abuse,you ask your kid to work in college you know.

little jimmy, little jimmy needs to study. littlejimmy's playing beer pong he needs a job. so that's how i grew up and so, sharonand i, my wife and i we meet, we get married, we start off with nothing. how many of y'all started off with nothing? you remember we ain't got money honeybut we got love. good thing too because we ain't got any money. we were eating off acard table, driving in 1902 pinto. for you young people that's a car, not a bean. andwe got married, set up our first little apartment with two nickels to rub together,and we'd been married about a month and my wife remembers that she's a baptist.she neglected to tell me this when we were dating. never came up. but apparentlythere's a doctrinal thing once your a baptist

your always a baptist or something idon't know what the deal is, but so she gets up on sunday morning and says we'regoing to church and i said we aren't doing anything i'll be here drinkingbeer and watching football and um course she cried and i'm like idon't understand we never talked about this before and all the sudden you just,you know, you're a super baptist. what's the deal? but um, so she takes off tochurch and and then every sunday she crying go to church and theselittle heathen or she'd go to these little baptist churches and they wouldpray for her heathen husband and um, so then i got into this multi-level thingthat i was in for about 10 years one 3

month period. and uh, you know one of those deals whereyou make your friends are mad you know that deal. and so um anyway so i wasgonna get rich me and one of my beer drinking buddies, there's a lot of beerin the story, but um and so we me and this little redneck guy that i was friendswith me, two little rednecks trying to figure out how to be how to get rich inthis business and so you know we were out there trying to do sales calls andwe couldn't get anything to work and we had five questions and we just knew ifwe can get these five questions answered we could you know be one of those richpeople in an mlm and we'd be having a yacht

and all this kind of stuff and you knowhow they do that stuff and so we went to one of their pep rally things you knowthe big thing in the convention center and they have all the guys that aresuccessful gals are successful get up on the stage and tell you how much moneythey're making and i'm making $800,000 a minute or whateveryou know that stuff right. and they've all got big checks. i never got abig check like that, i wonder if you can get that at the bank or not but you knowthey've all got this stuff and so we finally at the end of the day the lastguy to come up i kid you not his name was rich.

you can't make this up okay and so hewas the guy we wanted to see cause he was the big dog right and then when hegot up there he was even cooler than we thought and so he owned us you know imean like credibility city and on top of that his talk it was like he had our five questions ashis outline he went right down them man we're like this guy he knows everything this is the smartest guy on the planet and then hegoes he gets tto he end of his talking he goes and there's one more thing, and we went no there's not we got them it's five you know and he goes no there's one morething if you don't know god, you're going

to struggle in business. and my buddy andi went "say what?!" and he said when you put on the character of christ itchanges your character, it causes you to want to serve rather than to take, andyou're more worthy of trust you're more trustworthy and servants have a tendencyto win in business more than and so if you don't know god you're going to strugglein business he does this whole talk about god. and my buddy and i are goingi never heard anything like that before in my life. so you know we go back, two little redneckguys, we go back to the like the hampton inn or whatever

wherever we were staying and we get out thegideon's bible and it's old king james. so it's like shakespeare and jesus, right?these and thous and thou and this and i'm like there's no possible way thesetwo guys are gonna figure this out, right. so we sit there and look at it for a fewminutes and like i have no idea. we closed it. but i did go home i told mywife i said we're going to church and she said who are you and what have youdone with my husband? and so we visited a couple churches and one guys asleep inone of them and i'm like well if there's a jesus you shouldn't be asleep about it so um youought to be like excited. i like going to churches like this where we're having funy'all know what i'm talking about? i mean

sometimes you're going these places andthey look like they're weaned on a pickle you know i mean its life is badyou know and so anyway this place they you know want people raising their handslike they knew the answer to a question or something and you know and onewoman's up there swaying and i'm like i told sharon we were sitting on the back andtell us if they get out snakes were leaving. and uh, so pretty soon you knowwe're walking through the backdoor the place and meet the pastor and his wifewas one of those sweet sweet ladies and she just give everybody a hug that wasthere and you know week after week month after month we kept going and thatwoman literally hugged us into the

kingdom. and we met jesus there and itchanged the trajectory of my life. it changed everything and i started we of course left that whole multi-level thing i told you just for three months and so westarted buying and selling real estate um i grew up in the real estate businessmomma and daddy were in the real estate business so i knew the real estate business and i'mstart doing flip this house before there's cable tv to tell you how rightand so you know we're buying and selling houses and we got rich. by the time i was26 years old i had four million dollars worth of real estate little over amillion dollar net worth and twenty-five was my best year in thatbusiness i made $250,000

cash taxable income that year, that'stwenty thousand dollars a month. i don't know what neighborhood you grewup in the neighborhood i grew up and we call that rich. and it was fun too. i had that car i alwayswanted, you got that car you always wanted some day when i make it i'll get thatcar you know that one for me it was a jaguar i needed a jaguar because nobodyin the neighborhood i grew up in could spell jaguar right, and so i got me ajaguar man you know i'm riding along and within 90 days baby i was a jaguar rightyou know right right oh man i was having fun and sharon and iwe went to hawaii and we liked it so we

went back. she likes little sparkly things wegot her some. they weren't big enough so we got her some more. it was fun. sometimes i hear these people say "allthose rich people are miserable." uh-huh. now i'm not theologically orphilosophically shallow enough to tell you money will make you happy. money will not make you happy. you getmore money it will, it will make you more of what you are right now. if youare miserable and you get money, you will

be lots of miserable. if you're a jerkand you get money, big jerk. and and it will mess with your family too to the extent there's crazy in your family, and we all got crazy in our family right? you know, if you don't think you gotcrazy in your family, it's you. okay. so everybody's got something, right?and you put a little money on the crazy woohooo crazy gets crazy! y'all know what i'm talkingabout? is this real? so your money is not gonna solveyour problems it's going to make them bigger.

it's also gonna make your opportunitiesbigger if you're a generous person your generosity will go into overdrive. you'llbe outrageously generous. to the and you get a lot of money we'll call you aphilanthropist. cool word that means you give a lot of it away and you have ablast doing it. you found the most fun you'll ever have with money is when you findthat. so you know it was it was fun you guys but i did stupid stuff. how manyof y'all ever done somethin stupid? how many of you didn't raise your hand and have a problemwith lying? what do you think this is a rhetorical question? i mean seriously? i borrowed too muchmoney, and our bank got sold to another

bank out-of-state. i know that neverhappens around here. and a guy looked down sitting in another state and saidthere's a 26 year old kid in nashville owes us a million two hundred thousand and he'sflipping houses, we need to limit this relationship. which is banker talk forruin his life. and they called our notes. we weren't late, but they were 90 day notes sothey had the option of doing that. they just said we don't want to play anymore and iwent, "what?!" that started a crash that took took two and a half years to unfold and welost everything we owned. we were sued, we were, we were sued so many times. andthey were all right i mean i made $250,000 one year, the next year my taxableincome was 6,000. i spent the whole year

selling stuff trying to pay my bills andtrying to honor those things that i signed and i couldn't do it. causestupid will catch you and tackle you and i had signed up for stupid on steroids. i've done i mean i got a phd in d.u.m.b. y'all.i mean. we were sued so much that the little guy with the sheriff's department thatbrings those little pink lawsuit papers we're like on a first-name basis with the oldboy. sharon's making him cookies, you knowcome on harold. i mean, it's not his fault bless his heart, what a job you know oh man and-and-and. we had a brand-new babyand a toddler, and our marriage is hanging

on by a thread. y'all i was so scared i didn't know what todo. i remember standing in the shower with it so hot in my face i could just barely standthere and i would just stand there and cry. i was so scared. 28 years old i got babies, my poor wife.she thought she married sir galahad turns out it was goober. i mean i had missed it up y'all, i drove nascarinto the wall engines up in the stands i mean it's it was a blow-up. i mean wedidn't get a divorce i mean number one cause of divorce in north america todaymoney fights and money problems y'all know

you have a good money fight but if your ahillbilly and you have a good money fight it's real fight. i mean we didn't get adivorce shall we held on to each other but sometimes it's to get a bettergrip you know what i'm saying and i meanshe's from the hills of east tennessee frying pan throwing there is an olympicevent. you know it's like man and finally we hit bottom and we were bankrupt. i wasdoing one of these new shows the other day i do these fox and friends andgood morning america stuff and one of those news anchors is like "you know thisis a cool story you start with nothing you become a millionaire you losteverything know your multi-millionaire

how did you bounce back?" i went dudewhen you fall that far you really don't bounce. it was more of a splat. i said i'dlike to tell you bounce back but i didn't i set around whined and blamed everybodyelse. you ever do something stupid and blame everybody somebody else? yeah. turns out mcdonalds does serve hotcoffee, you know. it's like, man. we live in a, we live in a culture of victims don't we it's unbelievable and so victims of our own stupidity all of us it'sunbelievable. and so man i sat around whined. but, i tell you this: you know i metgod as i told you on the way up but i got to know him on the way down. and youi mean we were ground into powder

there was nothing left. we had ai surrender all moment and it wasn't about this baptist altar call baby i mean wesurrendered. white flag. you're in charge. what do you want us to do? because ididn't know how to be a husband. i didn't know how to be a dad. i didn't know how to handle money,obviously. i had a degree in finance, but i got to thinking about it who was ittaught me to borrow money this was my finance professor in college who wasbroke. know what's wrong with that picture? it's likea shop teacher with missing fingers. so

you know i mean so we get this thing outand it turns out my heavenly father even in spite of my stupidity is crazy aboutme. even in spite of my black heart he's crazy about me. even in spite of mydarkness and the worst dave that there is he knows him, he still loves him. he'scrazy about me. and he's got a plan and it's not to bring meharm. but to bring me hope. and so i dove in here hard. and i'm like okay how do you bemarried? submit yourselves one to another. oh no igotta dry dishes. now don't spare the rod, my kid's like"what's that dad?" come here baby i'll show you. 2,500 scriptures on how to handlemoney and possessions. and i started

reading people like ron blue and larryburkett and howard dayton who were the first guys in the christian space in themodern era to talk about what the bible says about money and i was amazed and istarted living sharon and i started living by those principles and they startedworking. now i won't tell you it was instant, it was not instant. if you'relooking for instant if you want get-rich-quick, god is not in the microwavebusiness he's a crockpot guy. it's gonna take t-i-m-e time, time. butman when you start living your life this way this is a compass it shows you whichways north and you're not lost anymore. i don't always like what it says but it'susually because i'm wrong, hello.

i don't know if i agree with what, withgod? [laughing] yeah right. i had a spiritual moment when i realized god was smarterthan me you know. ok i'm probably going to do it this waybecause it's working. all these years later it does work and not only didsharon and i get back on our feet gradually and slowly and start buildingwealth again, because you know we live in a cause-and-effect world what you plantyou will harvest you will reap what you sow, right? so if you plant stupid youwill get a crop of desperate. i've done it and you know if you plant corn don't be looking for beans to come up.don't be shocked by, cause what you put

into your life is what you're going toget out. god is real clear, it's all through scripture, it's a cause-effectthe whole thing you know the cause effect the theorem of cause and effectwas you know a christian physicist that discovered the christian worldviewand so you start to understand that that's how the universe works and ourlives are the same way and yet we live them randomly. and we go i wonder how thathappened? well you know you planted it six monthsago and it grew up and smacked you in the back of the head and that's whathappens in our lives isn't it? this is real. so, we start teaching alittle sunday school class had about 30

people in there. and then we looked up there's about 500in there. and we took a little book and printed it and nobody would buy it and i was selling it out of the trunk of my car in a video store, bookstores wouldn't carry it. andfinally some bookstores started carrying it, and then publishers wanted to publishit, and then all these you know 12 million books later here we are, you know.we start teaching a little class called financial peace university and with abad suit and an overhead projector and now all these years later four-and-a-halfmillion families have gone through it and forty thousand churches.

i mean god really knows how to takelemons and make lemonade, doesn't he? he knows how to take something and turn it around.so if your life's in a mess i'm here to tell you i got mess down. i know what mess looks like and we servea god who cleans up messes and seals broken hearts and touches wounds and andturns things around. and if you're too cool for school you're smart oh he'll get to you. he'll help you he'llhelp you course-correct and knock the hair off your head i'll tell you that but he'llcourse-correct you. because he loves you he's crazy about you.

so we found that there's five thingsthat if you do these five things with money over a period of time like 10 or15 years you will build a level of wealth one hundred percent of the time.and now i said a level of wealth i don't know what level because i can't predictcar wrecks and cancer, i can't predict tragedy and i don't know what yourincome will be. but if you're working and you do these five things, you will builda level of wealth one hundred percent of the time. and this is not some prosperitything and it's not mystical magical when i cover these five things, they're all commonsense. but common sense is so rare now it's like having a superpower.

so when you plug god's common sense andit changes everything. so let's look at the five the first oneis get on a budget. a written plan. jesus said for which of you intending tobuild a tower does not sit down first and count the cost lest to get halfwayup and is unable to finish and all who see him begin to mock him and say thisman began to build and was unable to finish. another christian they can't paytheir bills. i added that last part. you have to do a budget. on paper. on purpose. before the month begins, every month. ifyou work for a company called you incorporated and you manage money foryou incorporated the way you manage

money for you now would you fire you,don't answer that. and you know we misbehave with money the bible says he who is impulsive exaltsfolly, folly is the verb of a fool in action he who is impulsive is a foolin action. been there done that. arrow right here. and fools you don't want to be abiblical fool. this is not a greeting like "hey fool" no this is like an idiot. you don't want to bethat kind of fool. and so we're disorganized, we don't have a plan,nothing's written down, and we have the

unmitigated gall to pray to our heavenlyfather the maker of heaven and earth and say lord i'm misbehaving, i'm horrible,and i'm incompetent, but send me more money. to which he looks at us and says, "no." it's in the bible. parable of the talents. master gives three servants an amount ofmoney to manage. comes back later, two of them managed it well, one of them didn't. theone that didn't he not only didn't give him more, he tookthe money away from him who managed poorly and gave it to the one that hadthe most. who had managed at the best. and then there's that wealth inequalityscripture. hahaha. that says right after that those who are faithful in thelittle things will be given more to

manage. and so my son who's 15 years oldmany years ago decides he wants a brand-new corvette when he turns 16. towhich i looked at him and i said i'm a loving heavenly father, except i'm notheavenly, i'm a loving father. no, you cannot have a new corvette.although that sounds like a blessing to you my son it's 465 horsepower, it has a fiberglassbody, it will go from zero to 60 in 3.1 seconds, you are incompetent as a driveri've seen you drive you will kill yourself. and until you prove your competencewe're not even going to talk about

something that ridiculous. so right now what you will get is an oldchevette with a tired gerbil under the hood. because i remember when i was 16 myfirst car by the time i got rid of it it had been hit on all eight sides. befaithful in the little things, decide. the interesting thing about each one ofthese principles is, you can just decide today to do them. had a guy working for meand he was not doing his process right and i sat down and i said this is what you need to doand he goes well i it's not the way i do it and i said change. and he said welli'm not like you and i said change. you can decide today to be good at this, orleave. change. change. you can decide when

you go home, you can decide to do abudget today. get out a yellow pad or go free budgetonline every dollar com you can decide today. i'm gonna start managing moneywell today. today. you can decide. because you're going to keep getting what you've beengetting if you keep doing what you've been doing, you know this right? sowing and reaping. and the second one isyou need to get out of debt. now we know this one. you knew dave ramsey was goingto talk about getting out of debt. because you know the bible says theborrower is slave to the lender. it's real. now

the bible does not say that debt is asalvation issue. you can have a mastercard and go to heaven. the bible does not say debt is a sin. i can't find that in there. but i havestudied this for 30-plus years and i cannot find a single scripture anywherethat god used debt to bless his people or a single scripture anywhere that saysanything positive about debt. it always says you're a fool, it's a curse, you're a slave, and then wecontinue to engage in it and in our intellectual minds we somehow figuredout how we are smarter than god. while

all through the bible it basically saysdebt is stupid. and those that engage in stupid things are, well, stupid. and i'vebeen stupid i told you that so i'm not calling you names. here's the deal the borrower is slave tothe lender. you don't think this is so? think about this: your most powerfulwealth building tool is your income. let me show you what slavery looks like.this week they came out with new data that shows that the average car payment inamerica today according to national auto dealers association is 499 dollars.that's dangerously close to 500. you take 500 bucks a month and invest it from age 30 to age 70 in a decent growth stock

mutual fund, you'll have 5.6 milliondollars. that's what a car payment costs you. so who'd you make rich? general motors?ford? lexus? i don't know who was it? you made somebody rich. it wasn't you. andyou driving along in something you can't afford scratching your head,wondering why your kids college fund isn't funded. because we're giving it all tosomebody else. and they have nicer furniture in their building, have younoticed? something's going on here guys. you know and some people in here got a studentloan's been around so long you think it's a pet. you got master card in your life.

i mean it's hard to be a slave if youdon't have a master so you might as well. we've discovered bondage. and americandistress. and just keeps going and going and have done it to y'all, i'm notpicking on anybody i'm just saying here's the deal thinkabout this what if you had no payments? can't even get my head around that. well you're always gonna have a carpayment, you ever hear people say that? little man can't get ahead, you're alwaysgoing to have a car payment so drive something nice, yolo. right? which by the way is addressed inproverbs. says fool right after that. see

this is how we talk when we're losing. you know we can't get ahead i sure hope we can elect a president who will fix my life. not gonnahappen. neither one of them got the goods i'll just tell you. you're in charge ofyour life and you and jesus i can do all things through christ who strengthens meare the only shot you got it's the only one is gonna work and that's whatchanges. don't be listening to these people little man can't get ahead you talk to thesepeople you think their spirit animal is eeyore. it's unbelievable. so how do you get out of debt? well you have to decide to not borrowany more that's first step, isn't it? i have

we had plastic surgery at our house, we had a plastectomy. decided we're not borrowing money anymore. mastercard capital one. what's in your wallet? money. you're weird dave. you're right, and i'mnot broke anymore either. i decided i'm not living like this. i haven't had a credit card in 30 years. youdon't have a credit card?! i don't have a credit card. that's my wallet. got greenpresident's faces. and it's got four pieces of, [applause] thank you, it's gotfour pieces of plastic in here. two debit

cards, one on my business, one on mypersonal account, which will do everything your stupid credit card willdo. i travel more than any two of you put together shut up it works ok. dave you're not getting the airline miles yeah i've met a lot of millionaires and none of them said davei made it all on my airline miles, i haven't heard that one so. so i got four piecesof plastic in here these two debit cards my driver's license in my handgun carrypermit. i said that in california about got arrested. it's good to be back in america. um they just don't speak southern over there it's notgood for me. and the third thing once

you're out of debt then, you need to becareful to foster high quality relationships. what's that got to do with money?everything. there's a huge correlation for those that build wealth and who theyhang around with. because you become who you hang around with have younoticed that? you do! i mean i was in boston thursday night doing an event youknow those people all have an accent? you become who you hang around with youdon't let your kids hang around with little juvenile delinquents right? if little johnny down the streets a weedhead you don't let your kid run with

little johnny because you know you'regonna have a weed head in your house right? you know we know this. so you knowthey come home with that mouth on them and you're going where'd you learn that?that'll get you knocked into next week in this house i mean what or do you thinkyou could do you get away with that? i'll take you out and make another one looksjust like you you know i mean you know. it's cause they're hanging out a littlejohnny right you know what happens we're the same way y'all. we're the same way. youtalk like the people you hang around with you, you read the books they talk about,you know if you don't read and all your

friends watch the bachelor well here's a clue okay here's what'sgoing on if this is all you know about is reality tv that's not a reality probablywe need to change our diet you know and you don't read a book and so charlietremendous jones said five years from today you'll be the same person you aretoday except for the books you read the people you meet. i mean don't be deceivedevil company corrupts good habits and you know this the studies have shown that over a 10-yearperiod of time that your income will approximate will become within ten totwenty percent of the average of your 10

closest friends income. because you havethe same habits they've got the same diet into your self that they've got if youwant to learn scripture hang out with people that know scripture and arememorizing scripture you want to have a filthy mouth hang out with people with afilthy mouth you'll have it you can't stop yourself from doing it you willbecome who you hang around with and all the studies show that we have atendency now that's not to say i'm some kind of snob and i don't have anyfriends aren't rich friends not that at all i have lots of friends but my closesthangs are people i want to be like

that's my closest ones now i'll talk toanybody but like when our daughters were you know our daughters are growing upthey're grown and married two wonderful men now but you know they're in highschool and they're wanting to go on a date we didn't do missionary dating youdon't get the date little johnny the weed head and lead him to jesus that's notgonna work okay we're not doing this little johnny cango to camp and get saved again you know we'll work on this right and so no uh-huhyou come up in our house pick up one of our daughters honk your horn you betterbe delivering pizza alright so coming in talking to the oldman you know be cleaning my gun when you

get home you know the song right and soi mean this is kind of thing i'm teaching dad all the boys and youthgroup are scared of you good good keeps away two things you don't want baby doll youdon't want jerks and you don't want wusses and if i can keep both those away andthen i teach you how to keep them away you can pick good. and guess what theyboth picked good they both picked good they're married studs man i got some son-in-law unbelievablelove jesus love their wife love their kids i mean fight for their family i got man mysons in law are awesome it was an accident

started praying for my sons-in-law when mydaughters were born and praying still praying for my son's wife because he hadn'tfound her but he'll get around to it and you know but the you see what i'm sayingy'all and you become who you hang around with and you need to make these choicesvery very carefully the third thing or the fourth thing isyou need to save and invest. in the house of the wise are stores of choice food andoil wise people save money that's what this means oil is a sign of the holy spirit in theold testament it was used to anoint kings and it was used to keep the oil burningin the holy of holies and so it was used

in the marketplace like we use greenpresident's faces as a medium of exchange if you had a carafe of oil youwere ready to do business it was a sign of wealth there were twoclasses of people poor people and rich people most of the people were poorpeople this is the mediterranean we're talkingthey ate hummus and olives no meat a little bit of bread maybe maybe a fish if theygot some meat but that was it rich people ate what we eat every day spices good meat charleston food sceneyou know what i'm saying right cooking it up right you know what i'm sayingthat that's fine food stores of choice

food and oil food choice food and oil aresymbols of wealth so let's read that again in the house of the wise arestores of money wise people save money why well start with we say for anemergency right grandma said she said save for a what rainy day visual aid it's gonna rain it's gonna rain you're gonna have a car wreck you're gonna lose your job something's gonna happen you're gonna need somemoney dave you need to be positive i'mpositive it's gonna rain something's gonna come up this one i don'tunderstand unexpected pregnancy say what?

ok but people come up with all kinds ofthings that are emergencies right and something's gonna happen and then youneed to save an invest so you retire with dignity you know i'm gonna spend everything imake and hope the government which is well known for its ability to handlemoney will take care of me dumb idea they can't find i mean that they don'ti'm not even sure some of them have opposable thumbs up there you know i'm saying it'sjust ridiculous and we're counting on them and some whacked-out kind of way tocome be that they're not coming there is no white horse there is no calvary yourit you and me and jesus ok you are in

charge of your destiny and that's greatnews it's great news and so i'm all worried about the election and i'm not worriedabout the election because i've made money under both parties turns out it wasn't up to them in eithercase i've lost money under both parties none of them sent me a check they all just want money they'reextracting like a tick extracting blood all the time that's all they do this is the deal so in the house of thewise are stores of choice food and oil by the way the rest of that one says and afoolish man devours all he has if you

spend everything you make the bible justcalled you a fool again i've been a fool call me a fool too and i decided to change the last one is this god lovesa cheerful giver he loves a cheerful giver and this isall about generosity oh yes it's about the tithe the tithe toyour local church you're an evangelical christian yes tithe to your local churchabsolutely that's a baseline that's a starting point but this is all aboutcheerfulness it's about your generosity is not just a transfer of fundsgenerosity is a spirit where you decide to be a generous person generous people aremore attractive they smile they are not

grouchy it's not all about them they'rethe ones that open the door they're the ones when the grocery bag has the bottomdropped and your groceries are rolling all over the parking lot they're theones out there helping you pick it up these are the people that when they goout to eat after church they leave a tip you cheap christians servers don't wanteven waht to work on sunday because of us ridiculous well us i'm not i leave big tips big tipsbecause it's a form of generosity when they didn't give me good service oh shut upcarrying a tray that weighs more than you. figure it out.

they parked your car in the rain and the heatshut up give him some money. they park your hundred thirty thousand dollar car andyou give them three dollars what are you a nut that's ferris bueller parking the carthere take care of that man i get my twenty-dollar bill my car still sittingthere when i come out it's amazing besides that the guys working his way throughcollege or something right then and he says better than i deserve that's his code for i'm getting out ofdebt if they say that you gotta give them a double tip so i gave him 40 my wife'slike i'm gonna park your car and no you're not you're not you're not workingyour way out of college

you've already put up with me for 30years so it's alright generosity is a spirit it changes everything in your life andgod loves when we are cheerful givers because we're made over in his image andhe's a giver he gave his only begotten son. he's a giver. we can't call ourselves in his imageuntil we change our posture in our spirit about this but it's awful tough to giveif you're broke if you're in debt and you haven't savedany money and you don't have a plan and you're not hanging out with otherpeople who are givers and some change

you get to decide today it'll changeyour life when scripture intersects your life the truth of god intersects your life itmoves from your head and travels 18 inches into your heart it changes your behavior and changes thetrajectory of your life it will change your family tree you will change everyonewith your last name that follows you if you do these things it's that powerfulbecause there's this great plus sign on the scope of history and it's the crossand it's an opportunity that his mercies are new every morning i get theopportunity to do it again you have the

opportunity to thank you jesus for yourgrace in spite of all the bad things that i've done and i am in spite of allof that i'm so much better than i was but i'm still not even close thank goodness poor sharon's not marriedto the same guy she married all these years later he's a lot better husbandhe's a lot better daddy he's a lot better leader than he was when he was 32years old open this company he's a lot better at money than he washe keeps getting better and learning and growing and learning and growing still notthere still not there but i'm a lot better than i was and it'sbeen a wild ride y'all it's the most

it's the most fun journey you can if youdon't know this that guy named jesus oh my goodness you're missing out on theroller coaster ride of your life it's so thrilling you will throw your hands upand go woohoo and you oh man it just it's a it'sunbelievable that the sorrows are deeper and the joys are higher it changes everything it changes everythingand when you move this money piece around it gives you the tools to be thatin the marketplace and to be that for your family and to get this monkey offyour back and get that elephant out of the room because he's got to go

god we thank you for this day we thankyou for these folks thank you for these pastors generations of pastoring thischurch and what just wonderful men and women are here thank you for letting me be a part ofthis family this weekend and god we just pray blessings and mercy and grace and healing on thefamilies that are sitting here and and father some people are sitting here thatare still got their arms crossed and father that's between you and them begentle with them don't hit em any harder than you have to get their attention love emlord love em well in jesus name amen

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