Give deliberately. Giving is at its best when it's a conscious effort that's repeatedly made.

Teach your children gratefulness. Do all you can to deliver them from our culture's poisonous entitlement mentality.

Something nonhuman doesn’t become human by getting older and bigger; whatever is human is human from the beginning.

Jesus tells you exactly how to get it. Put your money in missions-and in your church and the poor-and your heart will follow.

As long as I hold tightly to something, I believe I own it. But when I give it away, I relinquish control, power, and prestige. When I realize that God has a claim not merely on the few dollars I might choose to throw in an offering plate, not simply on 10 percent or even 50 percent, but on 100 percent of "my" money, it's revolutionary. If I'm God's money manager, I'm not God. Money isn't God. God is God. So God, money, and I are each put in our rightful place.

But the reason we have this built-in desire for happiness is because we're created in God's image. He wired us to want to be happy. Unfortunately, we sometimes disassociate happiness from its true source, which is God Himself. Satan tempts us by offering us happiness, because he knows that's what we want. But he offers it in the wrong places, at the wrong times, and in the wrong things.

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