1. Session Five: Simplicity

3. “God made man simple; man’s complex problems are of his own devising.” Ecclesiastes 7:30 (JB) “The inner reality is not a reality until there is an outward expression. To experience the liberating spirit of simplicity will affect how we live.” ~Richard Foster

4. What is it? Aligning our priorities, desires, and attitudes to those of Christ and His Kingdom.How? first Seeking first the Kingdom of God.

5. “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?

6. “And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you – you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

7. gift  First, we must receive what we have as a gift of God. God’s our own  Second, we must know that it is God’s business to care for what we have and not our own. to others  Third, our goods should be available to others.

8. Father, I want to know Thee, but my cowardly heart fears to give up its toys. I cannot part with them without inward bleeding, and I do not try to hide from Thee the terror of the parting. I come trembling, but I do come. Please root from my heart all those things which I have cherished so long and which have become a very part of my living self, so that Thou mayest enter and dwell there without rival. Then shalt Thou make the place of Thy feet glorious. Then shall my heart have not need of the sun to shine in it, for Thyself wilt be the light of it, and there shall be no night there. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

10. “I do not mean that others should be eased and you burdened, but that as a matter of equality your abundance at the present time should supply their want… that there may be equality.” 2 Corinthians 8:13-14 What can I do?

11. The Graduated Tithe

13.  Total Income = $90,000 per year  Base Figure = $76,000 per year  10% of Base Figure = $7,600  Graduated tithe scale applies to the $14,000 earned above the Base Figure

15.  Total Income = $90,000 per year  Base Figure = $76,000 per year  10% of Base Figure = $7,600  Graduated tithe scale applies to the $14,000 earned above the Base Figure  Graduated tithe would be $6,650  Total amount given away = $14,250 $7,600 (10% of Base Figure) + $6,650 (Graduated tithe) = $14,250 (Total amount given away)  What would the family have tithed without the Graduated Tithe Scale?

16. The Graduated Tithe Communal Living Guidelines for Giving Practical Suggestions Resources  Salvation Army Overseas Children Sponsorship  WORTH Initiative  Heifer International & Community Development Loan Funds

17. “There are no ‘mere’ men. Moral splendor comes with the gift of life. Each person has within him a vast potentiality for identification, dedication, sacrifice, and mutuality. Each person has unlimited strength to feel human oneness and act upon it. The tragedy of life is not in the fact of death but in what dies inside us while we live.”

18.  3 billion people live on less than $2 a day  200 million U.S. citizens eat food enough to feed over 1 billion people in poor countries  2% of the world’s grain harvest would be enough to erase hunger and malnutrition  “Poverty means illiteracy, inadequate medical care, disease, and brain damage.”  $3 billion spent on cleaner water and sanitation in poor countries would save 5 million people  People in the U.S. spend $30-50 billion on weight loss annually

19.  Basic social services in developing countries would cost $30-40 billion annually… the rich of the world spend more than this on golf each year