How to Experience, Receive, and Give More Than You Ever Thought Possible
This story is adapted from Audacious Generosity, by Kevin White.
God’s Strategy Has Always Been Audacious Generosity
We all have an innate desire to be more generous but don’t know how. When it comes to the subject of giving, most of us feel like we have nothing left to give.
What’s worse? Our fear of failure then keeps us from being generous.
Unfortunately, most of us have no margin in our life for generosity. We are maxed out financially. We are already overbooked. It is all we can do to hold our own lives together. The Great Commission Jesus gives us in Matthew 28:18–20 is our last priority.
I know this from personal experience.
If you have ever felt pressured to give, then you have been made to think that you are the giver and that giving depends on what you can produce. I know the frustration that comes from the endless sense that we ought to give more without a clear path of how to become more generous. I also know the fear that giving now could result in the humiliation of complete financial ruin later.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, through my own experiences, I know a better way — through God’s strategy of audacious generosity.
But what does that mean? John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave Jesus.” God’s plan has always been Jesus and His strategy has always been audacious generosity.
Let’s define audacious generosity. “Audacious” is an adjective describing a willingness to take surprisingly bold risks. “Generosity” is a noun identifying the quality of being kind and plentiful. Now, putting the two together:
Audacious generosity is a willingness to take surprisingly bold risks by being kind and plentiful.
This is an attribute of God we see demonstrated throughout Scripture.
We all have an innate desire to be more and give more. We sincerely want to help other people to survive and thrive too. The problem is we have learned to avoid the subject of giving. Think about it: How many people do you know who wake up every morning excited to be more generous? I’m willing to guess it’s not very many.
Jesus promises that it is more blessed to give than to receive. In the pages that follow, I will uncover those blessings of God that result only from giving through His strategy of audacious generosity. My book will help you exchange any sense of pressure and regret for genuine confidence and satisfaction, and give you the real encouragement you need to live generously.
Real Encouragement
“Encouragement” is a noun describing the action of giving someone confidence. The word encourage comes from the Old French word encoragier, meaning to “make strong.” Courage results in freedom, and when you combine courage and freedom, you get audacious generosity. I’ve allocated two whole chapters to courage. By the end of my book, you will be “in courage,” and courage will be in you. If there is anything the world needs today, it is more courage.
Encouragement also means the persuasion to go the right way. By the end of my book, you will not only see that audacious generosity is the right way to go, but you will also know exactly how to get there.
God has scripted something much bigger for your life than for you to just survive until you go to heaven. Just in case you need encouragement to lower your guard, let me quickly tell you three things audacious generosity is NOT:
1. Audacious generosity is not about beating you up for not giving.
2. Audacious generosity is not about pressuring you to give what you can produce.
3. Audacious generosity is not about getting you to give with entitlement for personal gain.
Let me make it clear, audacious generosity is about you allowing God room in your life to do exceedingly more than you can ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20). It is not about us bossing God around or our faith being some force that guarantees prosperity.
Audacious generosity is about your life on earth counting in heaven. It’s about you allowing God to use you to bring heaven to earth. We don’t have to look far to agree that we certainly need more of heaven on earth right now. Audacious generosity is also about you taking as many people as possible to heaven with you.
Audacious generosity is where God is the Giver and giving depends on what God puts into your hands. I want you to see what happens when you commit to living openhandedly before God, ready to use what He puts into your hands to fulfill His mission, and watch your relationship with Him come alive as He gives through you.
God uses audacious generosity to totally transform how you see Him, yourself, and others. As a result of reading Audacious Generosity, you can have a life empowered for limitless giving. Your life can be filled with a sense of completeness, satisfaction, and excitement.
When you finish reading my book, the goal is for you to enjoy a living relationship with God that’s fueled by courage, characterized by freedom, and overflowing with audacious generosity. As God combines courage and freedom in your life, you will experience, receive, and give more than you ever thought possible.
Three Steps toward Audacious Generosity
My book is divided into three sections. Each section represents a significant step we must take in order to enjoy a life of audacious generosity:
1. Setting God free
2. Setting yourself free
3. Setting others free
Each section contains three specific points of encouragement that guide you in taking each step. I conclude each section with practical applications.
It is my prayer that reading my book will become a worshipful encounter with God for you. I strongly recommend you use a journal to record significant things God says as you read. It is amazing how God will speak and guide us when we value what He says enough to write it down. I also hope you’ll underline, dog-ear, and mark up your book however you need to make it stick. I pray you’ll look back and see this as a spiritual marker of God’s transformation in your life.
From Wanting to Die to Wanting to Give
I gave my life to Christ when I was ten years old. Twenty years later, after being fired from a church for being an insecure workaholic for God, I actually regretted becoming a Christian. The pressure I put on myself to produce and give was killing every area of my life. I wanted to die.
That’s when God took me more than 8,000 miles away and used India to change my life. On the plane ride back, I committed to making my life’s mission to passionately pursue the presence of God. During the next few years, God gave me the courage and freedom to let go of what I could produce, which is tiny, in order to receive what He can produce, which is limitless.
As you’ll read, this included everything down to our house, automobiles, and personal belongings. I started living openhandedly before God. Miracles started happening as I recognized God as the Giver. Something released in heaven as I committed in advance to use what God put into my hands to fulfill His mission on earth. All of a sudden, giving meant simply RELEASING what God put into my hands.
This has continued for over twenty years. Today I experience, receive, and give more than I ever thought possible. Just wait until you hear some of the miracles we’ve witnessed God perform in our very own hands. But I can take no credit. It has all been Christ working through me.
The surprising thing is the more I give, the more I receive. I seek to always give God my everything. I have firsthand experience that it is impossible to outgive God. He is so faithful, loving, kind, and plentiful. Now, it is my high honor to be a Christian and to enjoy this life of audacious generosity. I wake up every morning wanting to be more generous than I was the day before.
It saddens me how the vast majority of my brothers and sisters in Christ identify more with my first twenty years of Christian bondage than they do the last twenty years of audacious generosity. I want to change that. Together, we are going to change audacious generosity from being the exception to being the norm for ALL followers of Christ.
For over twenty years, God has had me staring at the 1.3 billion Indian Nationals who desperately need to know about Jesus. India alone represents one-third of all people far from God without access to hear about Jesus. Every day, 25,000 Indian Nationals die without knowing Jesus, only to face a Christless eternity. That’s 9,125,000 people a year. That’s a staggering number for me, but I have found that most people are completely unaware of this.
Audacious generosity is a movement where Believers around the world unite to fulfill the Great Commission. It’s believing everyone ought to have access to hear about Jesus. And, it’s taking action to do something about it.
Live with Audacious Generosity
Audacious generosity will show you how to set God, yourself, and others free. At the end of my book, I will be issuing a simple yet profound call to action so you can start living with audacious generosity right away. Change won’t happen overnight, but by starting with small practices, you can start opening your hands up to God. I hope you’re excited. I am.
I’d like to pray for you:
Heavenly Father, I ask that every person holding my book will be given a stronger sense of Your presence in their life. Let them passionately pursue Your presence first and foremost. Father, give them grace every day to ask You for more. Give them grace to take courage, find freedom, and to experience You give through them with audacious generosity. I pray they will begin to experience, receive, and give more than they ever thought possible. I pray that they will allow You to be free to be who You say You are and to do what You say You will do. I pray that they will really and completely set You, themselves, and others free. Father, may the love You have for the world overflow in them. Let the same miracles they read about in Your Word be witnessed today with their own eyes as You perform Your miracles in their hands. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Buckle up. The first step of setting God free requires God-sized courage. The good news is that courage is already waiting for you.
To learn more about How to Experience, Receive, and Give More Than You Ever Thought Possible, you can find Audacious Generosity on Amazon.
Over twenty years ago, Kevin White went on his first mission trip to India. He’s been staring at the need and opportunity to fulfill the Great Commission ever since.
Kevin is the Founder/Executive Director of Global Hope India, a mission organization providing access to the gospel to Indian Nationals. He’s now traveled to India over fifty times, hosting a thousand people on mission trips.
Kevin and his wife, Shelly, have three adult children and one grandchild. They live in Cary, North Carolina.
