The battle is not first at the level of behavior.

Like, you're going to write the check, you're going to give the money, or you're not.

That's not the battleground.

The battleground is what makes you glad?

Does giving as the overflow of joy in God

make you glad or doesn't it?

And if it doesn't, you've got warfare on your hands.

You gotta fight like crazy to get it right.

It's easy to think that the hard part of generosity is deciding how much to give.

But John Piper flips that.

It's not about the amount.

It's actually about our joy.

I'm Dan Kruver.

In this episode of Light and Truth, John Piper presses into the deeper battle beneath our giving by asking the question, what really makes us glad?

This message was originally delivered at the Bethlehem Baptist Church youth retreat in the winter of 2004.

Let's go to 2 Corinthians chapter 9 and look at verse 7, maybe 7 and 8.

He is still for two chapters motivating the Corinthians to be generous

in their giving for the poor in Jerusalem. So what does he say in verse seven? Each one must give as he

made up his mind not reluctantly or under compulsion. Sounds very familiar from chapter 8, verse 2.

And then he gives the reason for God loves a cheerful giver.

I'll just think about that for a minute.

It is a loving thing to give generously to the church, to the poor, to a friend, to those in need.

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