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

We can’t surrender to the culture. We’ve minimized the role of fathers, so we’ve created a generation of barbarians, children who become men without growing up. They stay in boyhood through their 20s and 30s,...

By eroding their sense of shame we’ve made immorality normal, not only in the world but also in the forbidden squadron. …their new Christian friends recommended some of the movies Fletcher had been wondering if...

He opened the first letter, No “Dear Mr. Woods.” It was a page full of profanities. There was something oddly refreshing about honest, to-the-point hate mail. No hypocrisy and forced politeness. Too many letters ripped...

When I save, I lay something aside for future need. If I sense God’s leading, I will give it away to meet greater needs. When I hoard, I’m unwilling to part with what I’ve saved...

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).

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...

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!...

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

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

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...

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...

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

Lord Foulgrin: “You must not let him see Charis as a place of learning, exploration, duties, travel, companionship, banquets, celebrations, and productive work. A low view of heaven is our ace in the hole.” (conspiring...

…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 nonmaterialistic, it’s actually selfish...

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.

In the silence punctuated only by their footsteps, both men thought not of themselves but of a Man who once made a long,lonely march up a hill, who in the world’s worst hour did the...

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

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.

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

[Nathan] wasn’t blindly obsessed with a possession. He wasn’t crazy. He was a hero–a father who’d risked his life to rescue his son.

To procrastinate obedience is to disobey God.

The most tragic strain in human existence lies in the fact that the pleasure which we find in the things of this life, however good that pleasure may be in itself, is always taken away...

If Miss Watson had told Huck what the Bible says about living in a resurrected body and being with people we love on a resurrected Earth with gardens and rivers and mountains and untold adventures–now...

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...

It’s not just what Christian fiction lacks I appreciate – it’s what it offers. The variety is vast: contemporary, historical, suspense, mysteries, adventure, young adult, romance, fantasy, science fiction.

Given our abundance, the burden of proof should always be on keeping, not giving. Why would you not give? We err by beginning with the assumption that we should keep or spend the money God...

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...

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.

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...

She was home (in Heaven). She was with the Person she was made for, in the place that was made for her.

I try to tell a story that’s good enough to win the right to integrate eternal themes into it. If it’s poorly written or comes across as a sermon, then obviously you don’t reach people,...

God doesn’t make us rich so we can indulge ourselves and spoil our children, or so we can insulate ourselves form needing God’s provision. God gives us abundant material blessing so that we can give...

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

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.

If economic catastrophe does come, will it be a time that draws Christians together to share every resource we have, or will it drive us apart to hide in our own basements or mountain retreats,...

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.

Fiction has subversive potential. People let it into their minds, like the Trojan Horse. They don’t know what’s inside. You hook them with the story, and God can work below the level of their consciousness....

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...

Some take pains to be biblical, but many [Christian financial teachers, writers, investment counselors, and seminar leaders] simply parrot their secular colleagues. Other than beginning and ending with prayer, mentioning Christ, and sprinkling in some...

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.

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

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,...

I read secular fiction, but also enjoy novels with a Christian worldview.

..tithing isn’t something I do to clear my conscience so I can do whatever I want with the 90 percent–it also belongs to God! I must seek his direction and permission for whatever I do...

it’s my responsibility to cultivate the man in my son. I can’t be passive about that.

Giving up everything must mean giving over everything to kingdom purposes, surrendering everything to further the one central cause, loosening our grip on everything. For some of us, this may mean ridding ourselves of most...

We should remember Christ’s words, ‘Let nothing be wasted,’ when we look in our refrigerators and garbage cans and garages.

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

I feel like a child who has found a wonderful trail in the woods. Countless others have gone before and blazed the trail, but to the child it’s as new and fresh as if it...