It's Friday here at Radical Personal Finance HQ. Frequently, usually, that means a Q&A show, but today I am preempting a Q&A show due to lack of internet connectivity. So of course in thinking about other things that I would like to share with you today, I've got a whole long list of things that would be very timely.
The stock market has been in gyration this week. Of course, that's always interesting to talk about. We've watched the continuance of our certain long-term fiscal doom for the U.S. government with the various spending bills that have been passed this week. So of course that would be fun to talk about.
We continue to watch the situation in Venezuela where the International Monetary Fund just recently predicted that this year we'll have 13,000 percent inflation. We've got a real-life case study of a hyperinflationary situation, unimaginable suffering, and there are a lot of lessons that could be learned there. I'm privy to some information, some things going on around the world that would knock your socks off if I shared them with you in terms of the physical challenges and economic challenges of many people.
But of course it's Friday and I don't want to send you into the weekend with that. So in honor of the forthcoming Valentine's Day holiday, which is a holiday that I detest, and I don't detest it only because I'm a curmudgeon, although I must admit I do have tendencies towards curmudgeonry, I detest it because it doesn't put a foundation that lasts.
And love is a foundation that lasts. So I thought, what better way to start the weekend than by talking about love and money and giving. And we begin with a story. This story is called Ryan in Love. It comes from chapter three of a book called Love Does by Bob Goff.
I used to think being loved was the greatest thing to think about, but now I know love is never satisfied, just thinking about it. We have a house down by the water and there's a little grass path where couples hold hands and walk along the bay front. My wife and I sit on the back porch and hold hands a lot too as we watch the couples meander by.
We're close enough to the water that they wave to us and we wave back. A nostalgic snippet from another time where people waved to each other during slow walks. This is how I met Ryan. One day, Ryan came walking down the path all alone. Ryan waved to us and we waved back like we did to everyone.
But instead of moving on, Ryan just stood there on the path waving and not moving because he kept waving, we kept waving. It was a little awkward, honestly. I wondered if perhaps this young man wanted to talk. So to break the tension, I made the short walk from the porch to the path to say hello.
"Hi there, how's it going?" I said, reaching out to shake his hand and give him a break from all the waving. "Hi, I'm Ryan and I'm in love," he said confidently. Ryan had that glazed over look that smitten guys get. "Well, Ryan, that's just great. Congratulations." "No, no, that's not why I came," Ryan stammered.
"What I wanted to say is that I walk by your house all the time and I have this girlfriend, you see," and he paused. "I want to know if it would be okay," he paused again, "if I asked my girlfriend to marry me in your backyard?" He talked like he had been holding his breath for quite some time.
I was taken aback by this love glazed kid who would approach a complete stranger and ask to use his house to stage a great caper. "But that's the way it is when you're in love, isn't it?" All he knew was that he wanted the girl and was going to do whatever it took to get her.
"Ryan, that sounds like a fantastic idea," I said, laughing. "Really?" Ryan answered. I guess he had expected an instant no or a gentler, "I'll think about it." "Sure, go get your girl and let's get you two engaged." With that, Ryan went half skipping, half floating down the grassy path.
I think his feet hit the path about every twenty feet or so. He was being strategic. He was being audacious. He knew what he was going to do. He was going to get his girl. A few days later, we were sitting on the back porch again. Couples were walking down the path holding hands.
We would wave to them and they would wave to us. Then came an animated figure bouncing and waving happily with both arms. It didn't take long for me to figure out that it was Ryan, and I walked down the path to greet him. "Hi!" Ryan yelped with his wonderfully goofy, glazed-over, "I'm in love" grin.
"Hi, Ryan. What can I do for you?" "Well, you know how I'm going to propose in your backyard?" "Yes, I remember that." "I was wondering if you think it would be possible for us..." He did another Ryan pause, so I knew whatever followed would be a whopper. "To have dinner on your back porch before I pop the question?" I bit my tongue to keep from laughing out loud.
I'd never even met Ryan before that week, and now he was asking if he could have a marriage proposal and dinner on my back porch? This kid has it bad. After a short pause, I shot back to young Ryan. "What the heck? Of course you can have dinner on my porch, Ryan.
That's a great idea. What can I make for you?" I don't think he heard the question, because off went Ryan down the path. He seemed to be levitating. He may have touched down on the grass once or twice over the next hundred yards. Ryan was another step closer to the prize.
He was all in. He was all about doing, and not just dreaming. He was going to get the girl. By now I found myself looking forward to my afternoon encounters with young Ryan. It reminded me how fun it was to be young and in love. I even started coming home early from work to sit on the back porch, waiting for him, checking my watch every five minutes or so, wondering when he would come bouncing down the path with another outlandish request for a total stranger.
And sure enough, Ryan came bounding down the path again, so I went down to greet him. "Hi, Bob. Hey, I was thinking," and then the pregnant pause, "would it be possible for me to have some friends of mine serve us when we're having dinner on your porch?" "You bet," I shot back laughing.
I was already this far in with Ryan. What could it hurt to have a few of his friends over? "What a great idea. How many would it take to serve you two dinner?" Ryan looked up with a cheshire cat grin and sheepishly said, "Twenty?" Did he just say he wanted twenty people inside my house to be his servers?
I was wonderfully stunned by the consistently audacious, almost vertical trajectory of Ryan's hands. He wanted twenty people to serve a dinner for two? Now that's service. But when love does, love does it big. "What a great idea, Ryan. Twenty it is," I said without hesitation. Ryan bounced away down the bay front.
I could tell that his head was ready to explode with anticipation. He had the vision, he had the plan, he had the place, and he had the staff. He was trigger-locked on the goal, and he was going to get that girl. A few days later, I was at my post.
Almost on cue, Ryan came galloping down the path. "Ryan, how are the plans coming?" "Well," he said, "I was actually wondering if it would be okay if after dinner and after my friends leave, you could put some speakers on the porch and maybe we could dance a bit?" "Of course you want to dance on a stranger's porch." "Speakers it is," I told him.
"Anything else?" I was trying to get all the possibilities out of him now. "Well, I think that about covers it for now. I'll ask her to marry me after we dance for a bit." "Great idea," I said to Ryan. "Go get that girl." Ryan skipped off. A day or two passed with no Ryan sightings.
I almost felt a low-grade depression sinking in on me. Was the planning over? Were there no more whimsical and outrageous ideas from Ryan as he planned his caper? Was the mischief done? I sat on my porch, reflecting on how contagious Ryan's brand of love was. And then, almost on cue, Ryan came running down the pathway again.
At this point, Ryan was a regular, and he bounded across the lawn and up to the porch without hesitation. He was pretty winded, actually, leaning over with his hands on his knees trying to catch his breath. I wondered if I should give him a paper bag to breathe into.
But after a few long moments, Ryan straightened up. There was a pause while our stares met. I had learned that a pause by Ryan meant there was another whopper of an idea brewing in his head. "Hey, Ryan, what's up? It's great to see you. How are the plans coming?
Do you—" He exhaled. "Have—" He inhaled. "A boat?" "A boat?" I was belly laughing as I asked him to repeat what I thought he just said. "Yeah, do you have a boat?" Ryan asked more confidently as he straightened a bit. "Well, actually, Ryan, I do," I said with half enthusiasm and half awe at Ryan's love-induced, audacious bender.
He had that glazed look again as he looked me squarely in the eyes. "Well, can I borrow it?" Ryan was out of control. He had no idea what an outrageous thing he was asking. But you see, to Ryan, I wasn't a total stranger. No one was. To him, the whole world was full of co-conspirators when it came to winning over his love.
He was completely unaware of and unimpeded by what was proper, what was acceptable, and what was conventional. Nothing was going to get in the way of what he decided he was going to do. "Okay, Ryan, the boat's yours," I said. "I'll take you and your girlfriend out on my boat after dinner at my house, after your 20 friends finish serving you, and after you dance together on my porch.
You can pop the question to your girl up on the front deck of my boat." Ryan floated away again, clueless of the beautiful, ridiculousness this girl was bringing out of him. Ryan was a study in focus, tenacity, and abandon. He was all gas and no brake. What Ryan didn't realize is that I decided to one-up him.
Why should he have all the fun? That night, I called the Coast Guard and told them about Ryan's elaborate plan and his glazed-over enthusiasm for his girl, which had swept him into a state of unparalleled whimsy. Ryan's enthusiasm was contagious, and pretty soon the guy on the other end of the phone had caught the bug, too.
The Coast Guard officer and I hatched a plan of our own. When the big night came, everything was in place. The night was balmy, the air was clear, and I think the stars even came out a few minutes early to see Ryan's elaborate scheme unfold. Ryan and his girl came walking down the path.
When they got to the white Nantucket house on the bay, he led her up the stairs and across the lawn toward a candlelit table on the porch. "Ryan, what are we doing? Is this okay? Whose house is this?" she whispered as she held his arm a little tighter. Ryan pulled out her chair and said this was for her as he sat her down.
The service at dinner by the twenty servers was impeccable, and the after-dinner dance was endearing as these two stood with arms around each other, slowly moving together on the porch. As they danced, they twirled and talked quietly. By now evening had fully set in, and the lights of the city mixed with the stars were starting to dominate the skyline.
It was as if the early-appearing stars had gone home and invited all of their friends, telling them, "You have got to see this." The evening was coming to its natural end, and Ryan took his girl by the hand and they headed back to the path. I have always wondered what was going through her head during all this.
I hope it all felt like a dream. As they got closer to the dock behind the house, Ryan gripped her hand, turned, and took her toward a boat that was tied to the end. "Ryan, what are we doing?" she half-demanded. "Come on," is all he had to say as they came onto my boat.
I was at the helm, and they made their way to the bow. With the stars out in full view, we slowly motored out into the bay. After a short time, we approached the spot where Ryan and I agreed I would stop the boat so he could pop the question.
In a total coup de grace, Ryan had fifty more of his friends on the shore to spell out, "Will you marry me?" with candles, just in case he got tongue-tied or overwhelmed in the intensity and whimsy of the moment. With their flickering sign as his backdrop, Ryan got on one knee.
"Will," he exhaled. "You," he inhaled. "Marry," he paused. "Me?" There was a gasp, followed by an immediate and enthusiastic "Yes." In this, the most special moment of their lives, neither Ryan nor his bride-to-be noticed that the Coast Guard had pulled in behind us with their firefighting boat, just as the officer and I had planned.
I gave the "thumbs up," the sign that she said "Yes," and he shot off every water cannon he had on the entire rig. It was a scene that belonged in New York Harbor on the Fourth of July with the Statue of Liberty in the background, but it wasn't happening there.
It was happening for Ryan because that's the way love rolls. It multiplies. Ryan and his bride-to-be let the mist from the water cannon settle over them like a thousand small kisses. Ryan's love was audacious. It was whimsical. It was strategic. Most of all, it was contagious. Watching Ryan lose himself in love reminded me that being engaged isn't just an event that happens when a guy gets on one knee and puts a ring on his true love's finger.
Being engaged is a way of doing life, a way of living and loving. It's about going to extremes and expressing the bright hope that life offers us, a hope that makes us brave and expels darkness with light. That's what I want my life to be all about, full of abandon, whimsy, and in love.
I want to be engaged to life and with life. Today on Radical Personal Finance, I want to share with you about love and money and giving. And I lead with that story because I think it provides a useful and important picture of how much fun money can be when it's given away.
Who had the most fun? Who had the most meaning out of that story? Was it the one who gave the most or was it the one who was given the most? This is one of those beautiful things about love. Love is one of those things that is wonderful to receive, but it's even more wonderful to give.
And the way that you receive it is by giving it. So in our story about Bob Goff, the author, and Ryan, the young man, and his fiancée, clearly in this particular narrative that was described, Ryan's fiancée was the one who received the most. But was she, exclusively in the context of this story, the one who received the most from that particular experience?
I would dare say that Ryan gave the most because he invested his time and his life and his energy into hatching out this elaborate scheme to show his love how much she means to him. And then Bob became included in that. Now what's so beautiful about love, especially as it relates to money, is you can express it without money and with money.
What I find so beautiful about that story is the extremes. Here is Ryan, a head over heels in love young man with probably very few physical treasures, very little money, and yet he was a man who was rich in love. He was a man who was rich in love of his friends to help him and his fiancée to celebrate their night together.
He was a man who was rich in ideas, and he was a man who was rich in courage to show his love what she meant to him. Bob, on the other hand, was a man who was rich in material possessions, big house on the water, nice boat. And yet those possessions did not control him.
Rather, he used those possessions in the service and love of others. And thus he got to actually benefit from those possessions. The most fun that you will ever have with money is giving it away. Previously on Radical Personal Finance, in episode 516 called Don't Let Your Pursuit of Money Ruin Your Life, I shared with you a story that I found on Reddit about a young man who lost the love of his life because of his miserly tendencies.
Miserliness and greed are tendencies and traits that you will need to continually fight against. And the only way that I know to fight against them is to continually give yourself away. And I want to talk to you about giving, not in a comprehensive sense. I love to talk about charity.
I love to talk about giving. I love to talk about love. And I may do a bit more on this subject in coming days and episodes talking about love and its various expressions. But today I want to give you six ideas about giving as they relate to love in hopes that they'll be an encouragement to you.
Number one, give of what you have and start with your stuff. One of the greatest errors that people make is they think that, "Well, if I have a lot of money someday, then I'll give." It doesn't happen. What happens is you give of what you have. Now, we don't know anything of what happened to Ryan, but if Ryan continues to give in his life the way that he gave when he had no money, if he continues to love his wife with the outrageous abandon that he demonstrates in that story, he will have a marriage that is so rich in love, it'll reward him for his entire lifetime.
He'll build a house that is so filled with love that his children will return that to him for his entire lifetime. And if he builds a fortune and he pours that fortune out and giving to others, he will be so rich in love, he'll have friends everywhere and rich experiences.
And when he lies on his deathbed, he will be able to look back with satisfaction, not because of what he had, what he accumulated, but because of what he gave. Now, I want you to compare that with the image of a miser, a word that we don't frequently use in our modern language, but is a word that is so vivid, at least to me.
When I think of a miser, I always think of the old Charlie Daniels song called "The Legend of Wooly Swamp." Listen to the words of this song and consider if you want to be like this man or if you want to be like Bob and Ryan in the story I just read to you.
The old man lived in the woolly swamp, way back in Booger Woods. And he never did do a lot of harm in the world. He just never did do no good. People didn't think too much of him. They all thought he acted funny. The old man didn't care about people anyway.
All he cared about was his money. He'd stuff it all down into mason jars and bury it all around. But on certain nights, if the moon was right, he'd dig it up out of the ground. Then he'd pour it all out on the floor of his shack and he'd run his fingers through it.
Yeah, Lucius Clay was a greedy old man, and that's all there ever was to it. That is the picture of a miser. Now listen to what money does in the context of this song. "To the miser and to those who want the money but have no love in their hearts." Next verse.
"The Cable Boys were white trash. They lived over on Carver's Creek. They were mean as a snake and sneaky as a cat and belligerent when they'd speak. One night, the oldest brother said, 'Y'all meet me in the woolly swamp later. We'll take old Lucius' money and we'll feed him to the alligators.' They found the old man out in the back with a shovel in his hand and 13 rusty mason jars he'd just dug up out of the sand.
Then they all went crazy and they beat the old man and they picked him up off of the ground. Then they threw him in the swamp and they stood there and laughed as the black water sucked him down. Then they turned around and went back to the shack and they picked up the money and ran.
Hadn't gone nowhere when they realized that they were running in quicksand. And they struggled and they screamed but they couldn't get away. And just before they went under, they could hear that old man laughing in a voice as loud as thunder. Now that's been 50 years ago and if you go by there yet, there's a spot in the yard in the back of that shack where the ground is always wet.
And on certain nights if the moon is right down by that dark footpath, you can hear three young men screaming and you can hear one old man laugh. That in my mind is a beautiful picture of the gripping power of money and greed. And I use that word beautiful in the sense of describing how accurate it is.
Of course it's a viciously ugly picture. But is that not true? People didn't think too much of the old man. They all thought he acted funny. The old man didn't care about people anyway. All he cared about was his money. Now we don't, most of us, know misers in this sense.
The old hermit living out in the woods in a shack with rusty mason jars stuffed with coins and notes. But how many of us know a miser in their heart who expresses that miserliness, not with a rusty mason jar but with an IRA, with a sack of gold in their safe, with a perfectly constructed seedy ladder, with a beautiful portfolio of alternative investments, with a magnificent portfolio of cryptocurrencies?
And yet the money has their heart and their hearts are just as black as old Lucius Clay. Compare the end of Lucius Clay with the end of Bob Goff. Compare the end of the white trash cable boys that went to steal the money with the end of Ryan. And ask yourself, which path are you on and which path do you want?
Jesus taught that it is better to give than to receive. Now that seems paradoxical but it's true. And I hope in these vivid images that I'm bringing to you can see how true it is. It's better to give than to receive. And the most fun you'll have with money is to give it away.
So number one, give of what you have. Give of your stuff. If you have stuff, use that stuff for others. If you have a boat, use it for the service of others. If you have a house, fill it up and use it for the service of others. Don't keep your house barren and cold and physically beautiful but bereft of life.
Fill your dinner table with friends and neighbors and people in need. Bring the person in off the street and serve them a good meal. Bring your neighbor across the street over to your house and invite them in and share a rich dinner together, share a glass of wine together and give of yourself.
Use what you have when you have it. I think we all love to watch those videos on YouTube where some YouTube videographer goes and gives a large amount of money to a homeless person. And then it touches our heart when we see that person go and take of the great gift that they've been given and give to others, of their friends.
They go and buy food or give to others who are in greater need. You and I have been given so much. And it's our responsibility to turn and give to others. So don't hoard your life. Don't hoard your time. Don't hoard your stuff. That's a recipe for misery. Hoarding your life by living out in a shack by yourself may not be you.
But hoarding your life by devoting it solely and selfishly to your own pleasure may be you. There's no fulfillment in that path. You can be just as lonely standing on the golf course as you can in a shack out in the middle of the swamp. It starts with you.
So number one, give of your stuff. Use your stuff for others. Number two, give of your money and give first off the top. One of the most powerful things to do when you recognize a danger is to confront it immediately. And when you're fighting against the danger of greed, you need to confront it immediately.
So give of your money, give of your time, give of your life first off the top. With money, I recommend that before you do anything else with money, you give. Choose an amount of money that you're going to give off your money and give. This is the only way that I know of for you to ensure that you'll always be a giver.
I really have a hard time believing that a man who won't give a dollar out of 10, that that man will suddenly change and give a million out of 10 million. Now it may be possible. I do think there probably are people who have done that. It is sometimes easier to give when you have huge abundance.
And the man who suddenly finds himself in possession of $10 million may very well be struck with a generous urge. But I'll bet you if you ever find a man who does that, you'll find that that man has always been a giver. Maybe not of money, but of time and of stuff.
I used to have this old neighbor, old redneck neighbor of mine growing up. He was a good man, but he loved to play the lottery and he would always talk to me about what he was going to buy for me when he won the lotto. And he was going to buy me a new car and he's going to buy my brother a new car.
And I always told him, especially as I got older, I said, "If you ever win the lottery, the worst thing that ever happens to you, I'm going to pray that you never win the lottery because it'll ruin your life." It certainly seems to ruin most people's lives. But in his case, I actually believed him in this way.
He was such a giver that I think he would have given me a car if he'd ever won the lotto. But that giving was expressed constantly in other ways. The man was poor. He lived on Social Security disability. That was it. But he would go and he would cull in the orchards, not cull, glean.
He would go and glean in some of the citrus orchards and he'd fill his trunk full of oranges and grapefruit and he would bring those to us and he'd always give that to us. He didn't have much money, but he grew a big garden. He'd always give us the food out of his garden.
He didn't have a lot, but he'd give his time. He was a giver. And I think he was blessed for it. So focus on giving first off the top and start with your money. If you don't know how to do that with your time or with your stuff, start with your money.
Give first off the top so that you can protect yourself from greed. Number three, give systematically. One thing I have found is I frequently need to put in place a system in order to make sure that I consistently do the things I need to do. My systems fail frequently.
I don't always do the things I need to do. But I always know if I'm going to make progress, I need to build a system. So give systematically. Figure out a plan for your money so that you can give systematically. I encourage you, open up a separate bank account that you call your giving account and systematically put a certain amount of money into it, whatever you've determined to give.
Set the money aside in advance. And that way, you have a storehouse of money. And when you see need, you can give abundantly. I build this personally from this particular idea, from Paul's encouragement in the Bible in the book of 1 Corinthians, where in talking about a need, the collection of money that was going to be given from some churches who were doing very well financially to some churches who were in great need, when he said, "On the first day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up as he may prosper so that there will be no collecting when I come." A number of years ago, I was reading that passage and I thought, "You know what?
That is a very important approach." And so I opened a separate giving account. I just always put the amount of money that I determined to give into that separate giving account. And it changed my observation of the needs around me. It also changed my ability to impact those needs.
Because instead of trying to fish around and find a $20 bill to give to somebody in need and wondering if that $20 bill were going to impact some other area of my finances, there may be hundreds of dollars in that account. And now I can sit and consider how much of these hundreds of dollars should I give to this need?
So give systematically. Give systematically of your time. Give systematically of your love. Do those things systematically so that you can train yourself. Number four, give for your entire lifetime. Start when you're young. Don't wait. Start when you're young. Start your children when they're young and continue until you're old, until you reach death's door.
Don't make your ambition to be the one who can get the most. Make your ambition to be the one who can give the most. Now here's the paradox. In order to give, you frequently will need to get. And the giving will often result in more getting than anybody else.
But make your ambition to be the one who can give the most. Don't sit and look admiringly at a newspaper article and say, "Well, so-and-so is taking the Warren Buffett and the Bill Gates billionaire pledge, but I can't do anything because I'm not a billionaire." Nonsense. Good for them.
I'm proud to hear of every billionaire who devotes a significant amount of their fortune to charity, but you know what? I don't want that problem. I have no idea how it would be possible to give away a billion dollars and have it do something good. If I'm ever a billionaire, perhaps I'll know then.
You don't know it either though. You don't know how to give away a billion dollars. You probably don't even know how to give away a million dollars and have it do good. But if you'll practice with a dollar and 20 and 100 and 1,000 and 10,000 and 100,000, you'll be ready for the million and 10 and 100 million and billion someday because you'll develop the skills that you need to give your money away effectively.
Make sure that you're practicing those skills now and then make a plan to give for your entire lifetime. Don't make your ambition to be the one who can get the most. Make your ambition to be the one who can give the most. I believe you'll live a richer life.
Number five, give in secret. As much as you possibly can, give in secret. The more you can give secretively, the more satisfaction you'll get because you'll learn how pure your motives for giving are. I build this particular principle in practice, again, directly on the teaching of Jesus, wherein Matthew, he said, "When you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets that they may be praised by others.
Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing so that your giving may be in secret and your father who sees in secret will reward you." Give in secret and you'll have an eternal reward and you'll have a deeper satisfaction of seeing the impact of your money.
This will actually also help you with many components of your financial planning. The more you give publicly, the more requests for giving you'll get. Want to make your life difficult? Start giving money when people know where it's coming from. You'll be inundated with requests. Want to make your life simpler?
Give in secret. Don't let anyone know what you give or where you give or why you give or how you give or how much you give. Just give. And then the true needs can be met and you'll have the luxury of being able to make your judgment of somebody's need a little bit more privately with a little bit less noise from hands reaching out to you greedily saying give to me, give to me, give to me.
Do your giving in secret. Number six, give as God directs you to give. This particular point, I'll give you some examples of, but I believe it's very much underappreciated and under discussed in the world of financial advice. In short, ask God what to give and who to give it to.
And I want to make one comment with a special emphasis on you who struggle to wonder and to know, one, does God exist? And two, is God involved? And I want to tell you one story that for me I think is very important. And in short, the principle is this.
I personally believe that if you have an interest in getting yourself brought to God's attention, one of the ways that you can do that is through giving. One thing I've learned through correspondence with many listeners is I have many listeners who would like to believe in God, but lack the faith for various reasons.
There's a story in the Bible that is very instructive, I believe, in this regard. It's a story of a man named Cornelius. Now, a quick bit of history I believe is very important before I read the verse to you that I believe is so crucial. The man named Cornelius, so it's a little bit of early Christian history.
So Christianity was birthed out of Judaism. Christians believe that God spoke first to the forefathers and the patriarchs through the family of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The family of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that is the family that brought the...those are the patriarchs of Judaism. And so God worked first through the Jews, his chosen people.
God didn't choose the Jews because they were special. He chose them because he wanted to choose them and based upon the faith of the patriarchs. In fact, they were in many ways the worst of the lot, the least of the least repute. So through the adventures over the three to four...the three or 4,000 years of Jewish history, through the various adventures, God brought forth the Jewish people.
And then at the time that was appointed by God, Christians believe that God sent Jesus, the Messiah, to the Jewish people. The Jewish people rejected Jesus, but he was sent to the Jewish people. Jesus preached to Jews. Only rarely did he preach to non-Jews. So the early church was built after Jesus died, was resurrected, raised back to the Father in heaven, after the day of Pentecost in which he poured out the Holy Spirit, as is written in the beginning of the book of Acts.
The early church was birthed in Judaism and it was filled with Jews. And since the Jews believed that their religion was special to them, and it was, the early Christians believed that God would continue to work primarily with Jews until we have an account of a man named Cornelius.
Cornelius was not a Jew. Cornelius was a military officer, a centurion, which in the Roman military system was an officer who was in charge of a hundred men. So you consider all of the military men that you've known in your lifetime and put those attributes onto Cornelius. Now sure, Cornelius was a disciplined man, a very strict man, a hard man.
He was a man of war. But here's what's interesting. Reading in the book of Acts, about after the first third of the book, chapter 10, we read this. At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of what was known as the Italian cohort. Listen carefully. A devout man who feared God with all his household, gave alms generously to the people and prayed continually to God.
About the ninth hour of the day, he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God come in and say to him, "Cornelius." And he stared at him in terror and said, "What is it, Lord?" And he said to him, "Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God." Your prayers and your alms, alms are gifts, charitable gifts, have ascended as a memorial before God.
And now send men to Joppa and bring one Simon who is called Peter. He is lodging with one Simon, a tanner whose house is by the sea. When the angel who spoke to him had departed, he called two of his servants and a devout soldier from among those who attended him.
And having related everything to them, he sent them to Joppa. This man who is not a Jew, who's a military officer, using my words, was doing what he knew to do. He feared God. He gave money generously to the people and he prayed continually to God. Now, the story goes on and Peter, one of the 12 disciples, a very famous of the 12 disciples, as the story is recounted in the book of Acts, Peter was praying on the rooftop and he was also given a vision.
It was a very startling and unique vision. And that vision involved Peter being commanded to eat animals that Jews had previously been forbidden to eat. And Peter refused. But the vision came back and said, "Don't call things unclean that God has called clean." And Peter was given the specific instruction that there would be a man named Cornelius who would be sending men for him and Peter was supposed to go with him.
So Peter then, the soldiers knock on the door of the house where Peter is staying and in obedience to the vision, Peter goes with Cornelius' servants and soldier back to the house. And he finds out what was going there, what was happening there. And Cornelius says to him, "Here's what was happening.
Four days ago, I was praying in my house at the ninth hour and then a man stood before me in bright clothing and said, 'Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your alms have been remembered before God. Send therefore to Joppa and ask for Simon, who is called Peter.'" And he says, "Now we're all here in the presence of God to hear what you've been commanded to say to us by the Lord." Now listen to this, reading from Acts.
"So Peter opened his mouth and said, 'Truly, I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation, anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. As for the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ, he is Lord of all.
You yourselves know what happened.'" And he goes on and he gives the whole story of the, and he preaches the whole story of Christ, of everything that Christ came to do. "And as Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell on all those who were listening and they were baptized in the Holy Spirit.
They went on to be baptized in water and there was a mighty move of God among the household of Cornelius." Picture this, picture how revolutionary this is. You have a military soldier who's not a Jew, who's being preached to by a Jew who never imagined that the gospel of Jesus was for anybody except Jews.
Peter was a Jew and he thought that Jesus was simply the Messiah, the one to build the kingdom for the Jews. And it was through this man, Cornelius, that the gospel was preached to people who were not Jews. I'm not a Jew. You're probably not one either. This man, Cornelius, was that linchpin.
It was his faith in God, which was expressed in his fear of God and in his financial giving and in his prayers. Now, what was interesting was Peter went on to be called to account by the early Christians who were Jews in Jerusalem for what he had done. He had broken this huge taboo.
He was going and he was preaching to a non-Jew, to a Gentile, and he was called to account for that. Now, he went on and he gave his defense. He gave his defense for why he had done what he had done. He'd received the heavenly vision and he was obedient to it.
He gave his defense for what had happened, how the Holy Spirit had fallen, and it was a clear evidence of God's approval of these Gentile believers being allowed to become disciples of Jesus. But it was based upon this man, Cornelius, who gave money consistently because he knew it was right.
This man was so pivotal in the history of the world, and one of the reasons that the Bible clearly states that he was remembered before God was because of his giving of money. If you're one who is looking for faith, if you would like to have a heart filled with faith, but you struggle, I encourage you, be a giver.
Give of your money to others who are in need. Consider God, give of your money, and pray, and see if God doesn't meet your need. He doesn't need to put you in contact with anybody. He doesn't need to put you in contact with me or anybody. He can do it with a vision, and he's doing it all over the world today.
But start by doing what you know to do. One of those things is giving your money away. That's the first part of give as God directs you to give. I say that because money is an expression of what happens in our hearts. If your heart is filled with light, the money is a blessing to you and will be a blessing to others.
If your heart is black and filled with darkness, then either you'll be the one burying it in rusty mason jars in your backyard, or you'll be the one murdering the one who's burying it in rusty mason jars to get it. If you take that metaphor and you expand it out over the history of the world, you'll see the elements of civilization in that.
You'll see and understand what's happening in the world when men build giant companies and then scam everybody. It's because their hearts are black. Whether that's Tycho or Enron or Bernie Madoff, or whether it's the local common criminal who sticks a knife in a lady's ribs and steals the purse off her shoulder.
The money is an expression of the heart. I think that story of Cornelius is so underappreciated. As I studied it out and just thought about it, I think that's so underappreciated how pivotal that man is in the history of the world. Now to the shame of Christians everywhere, relationships between Christians and Jews have not always been as beautiful as that story would recount.
Christians have a lot of blood on their hands of their interaction with the Jewish people. It hasn't always been as pretty as it was in that story. But that man Cornelius and his giving of money and his fear of God, that man Cornelius was pivotal in history. Now there's another interesting account in scripture about another man in similar circumstances, a man named Job.
I'll save that story as far as those details for some other place and some other venue. But Job has an interesting, just the cliff notes of it, Job is an interesting story because it's almost exactly the same. Job is a very strange figure in the Bible. It's a very, very strange book.
One of the strangest books that I struggle with to understand more than almost any other book. I simply do not understand much of Job and Lamentations is the other one. I don't get it. I just don't get it at all. But with Job, one of the things that's amazing about him is we have Job who was an ancient figure, possibly a contemporary of Abraham, but we have no knowledge or record of any connection with Abraham.
But one of the things that Job did that brought him to God's attention in an amazing way was he was a faithful giver. You go read the story if you want. Read the first few chapters, skip the middle 15 or however many chapters it is because they're really weird.
And then the last few chapters, there's, forgive me, I don't mean to be, what's the word, disrespectful of it. It's just, it's a hard book to understand. This is a book of Job, but it's pretty clear on the subject of money. And I commend it to you if you want to study that one out.
Now, here's the other aspect of give as God directs you to give. For those of you who struggle with faith or struggle with that, I commend to you give of money and see if God doesn't open your eyes or grant you the faith that you're looking for. If you have faith to give, give as God would direct you to give.
One of the most exciting things about the giving of money is the way that God can use it in your life. I have so many stories I could recount to you of the excitement of giving money, stories where I have been a receiver, some stories where I have been a giver, stories of people who were near to me.
And God frequently uses money, at least in my life, to interact with me and with faith. If you're going to give, I encourage you to work together with your wife or with your husband and give together. There's a man I knew in years past, and this story was – I'll just share a couple to hopefully encourage you because this is so under-discussed in the world of financial planning.
A man I knew personally, he had gone through and he'd been involved in a business relationship of sorts with another man. And this business relationship had ended on a sour note. He and his business partner had come to a contentious parting of the ways. There had not been fraud committed, but they had just come to a disagreement.
They dissolved their mutual business interests and they each went their own ways. This man that I knew was – a while later, I forget if it was weeks, months, or years. My guess would be something like months. A while later, he had bought a new vehicle for his business.
They were in the same business as the other man, something like a new van, a work van, or a truck. And he'd bought a new vehicle for his business. And he was in prayer one day, and he felt like the Lord spoke to him and said, "You need to go and give this vehicle that you just bought to your ex-business partner." And he thought, "Why?" He didn't owe him any money.
There was no reason for this. It was an acrimonious parting. "Why?" Put it aside, came back again. "You need to go and give this vehicle." So this man that I knew wasn't sure what to do with this. And so he told his wife, he said to his wife, he said, "There's something I want you to pray about, but I'm not going to tell you what it is.
So please give yourself to prayer and see if you can get an answer from God on something." But he didn't tell her anything that it was related to. A few days later, he's talking to her and he says, "So what did the Lord speak to you?" And she said, "Well, not really anything." And he said, "Come on, there must be something.
What did the Lord speak to you?" And a little bit timidly and kind of ashamed at how silly the whole thing seemed, he said, "Well," she said, "I feel like God wants us to give our new vehicle to your ex-business partner." And my friend's answer was, "Praise the Lord." Got in the vehicle, called up his friends, said, "I'm coming.
I'm going to give you this vehicle. I just need you to give me a ride home." Took it there and delivered it that same day. Now, here's what's amazing about that story. Of course, it's one of those stories that defies every bit of logical reasoning, but it's one of those stories that is so exciting to be involved in it.
When you're in the place of giving and you're in a situation like that, where your wife hears the same thing you hear from the Lord, it gives you, it opens up things that are often not expressed, and it gives you faith. This happens when you're on the giving end.
It also happens when you're on the receiving end. There was a time in my life where I had a specific financial need, and I determined that I was going to wait on the Lord until I had my specific financial need met. I didn't tell anybody. I just committed it to God, and I waited.
In a really remarkable way, I had multiple people who came together, who gave me a sum of money, and it was a substantial sum of money, who gave me a substantial sum of money that was exactly the amount that I needed for this particular need. That encouraged my faith.
That encouraged me deeply, and it was exciting to be a part of. I've seen this happen for others. Sometimes you know about it, sometimes you don't. A friend of mine was building a house. They're building an addition on their house, and they had completely run out of money, but they were determined they were not going to borrow money.
There was a particular time in this person's life where the man was sweeping the addition because he had completely run out of money and had no ability to buy materials, had no ability to pay people, just had run out of money and didn't know what to do, and was sitting there sweeping the addition on their house thinking, "You know what?
This thing is just never going to be done. I don't see any way. I don't make enough money. I don't have enough money. This thing is going to sit here undone for years," and was deeply depressed and was really wrestling. "Maybe I should just go and get a loan." He came back to a place of faith and said, "No, I'm not going to get a loan.
I'm going to wait." Some time later, I forget whether it was days or weeks, somebody out of the blue anonymously – I can't remember if it was anonymous or not – somebody out of the blue gave them about $10,000, which was exactly the amount of money that they needed to finish the addition.
They never told anybody. They never said, "Oh, I need $10,000. Let me tell you." But because financial needs are so acute and they're so involved in our lives, they're so meaningful, there are physical needs and financial needs that are very hard to get more personal than that. When you have a physical problem in your body or if a financial need – relationship problems, of course, are also some of the most intimate.
But that encourages your faith. Now, you may know when you give. You may know what happens or you may not know. You may never know the account of it. I'll give you another story and I'll finish with this one as far as the stories. A man I knew, a good part of his life was devoted to international missionary work.
This man was active in Asia, preaching and moving and preaching in Asia. While he was in Asia, he had contact with a lot of different churches. Most of the time when he would leave – this man I knew personally lived here in Florida. When he would leave Florida, he would of course – he would work much of the year to save the money to buy the plane tickets that he would need and buy the plane tickets and then to have money to give to the people in Asia where he was going and ministering.
And then of course, frequently people who were involved in local church would also give so that he would have excess money for his missionary work in Asia. What was interesting was he would go to Asia every year. While he was there in a country in Asia, there was one trip where on that particular trip, he didn't have enough money.
I don't remember the circumstances as to why, but people hadn't given very freely, didn't have enough money. But he went ahead and went. He had enough money to buy only a one-way ticket instead of a there and back ticket on that particular trip. And on this trip, while he was there in Asia, he ran into a problem with some of the local churches that he had interaction with.
And he was speaking against and standing against sin that some of the churches had allowed into their church congregations. Well, these churches wanted him to back down from that position and he refused. They wanted him to say, "Well, just come and speak," and he refused to speak. Now much of the time when a preacher or a missionary or somebody who is preaching is invited to come to a church, sometimes they will be paid what's common in Christian culture.
Sometimes they'll be paid, arranged in advance. Sometimes the person will take up an offering, which is a voluntary contribution for the preacher to pay the preacher. The Bible teaches very clearly that preachers of the gospel who make their living by the gospel need to be paid well. And so in this context, he knew that if he were to go and to compromise in this area of sin, if he were to go and to preach that they would, this was a prosperous church, they would take up an offering for him and that he would have the money that he needed to get back home from Asia to Florida.
He said no, based upon not compromising in the area of sin. He had just enough money to buy his ticket back to Hong Kong, which was a central hub of Asia. And there were in Hong Kong some related churches, churches that had connections. And while he was there, he normally would go and would speak at these churches.
And again, these particular churches were very prosperous. They came and they wanted him to speak and he said no, based upon not wanting to bring division between them of his not being willing to speak in one place, but as being willing to speak in another. He said no, again, knowing that they would have collected for him an amount of money.
And forgive me, one more thing, a detail I missed. While he was in Asia, they actually had taken an offering or contribution and they tried to give it to him while he was in the other country in Asia, not in Hong Kong. And he looked at it, counted it, knew, and I'm telling you a story with, it's not firsthand, secondhand.
I knew, I know the person intimately who this was involved with. These details are exactly right. He looked at it, he counted it, it was enough money to buy his return ticket and he gave it back. He said, no, I'm not going to take the money until you guys deal with this particular area.
While he was in Hong Kong, he felt impressed to go and to go to the ticket counter in the days when you could reserve a ticket without buying it, went to the ticket counter, reserved a ticket back from Hong Kong to Florida and said to the man behind the counter, I'll be back in an hour to pay for it.
Was walking around the Hong Kong airport, no money, no idea what to do, just simply seeking to know what's the next step. While he was walking around the airport in Hong Kong, an unknown lady walked up to him out of the blue. He'd never met her, never knew her name and said, I felt impressed by the Lord this morning in prayer to give you this, handed him an envelope or a package or something and walked away, took it open, counted the money.
It was exactly as much as he needed to pay for the ticket home and cover his traveling expenses that are associated with travel. Friend, that is exciting. When you're involved in that kind of working with your money, that is exciting. Now that lady, to my knowledge of the story, that lady probably never knew what her giving was meaning.
She never knew. She just knew that she was responsible to go and to give this particular amount of money to somebody in a certain location. To my knowledge, she never had any contact with him before or after. She never knew him. He never knew her. But the need and the gift were brought together.
That is powerful. That's exciting to be involved in. I said that was the last story. I'll tell you one more. This one is not personal, but this was a particular account that for me was very influential. When I was a younger man, I was really wrestling with basically the theology of money.
Because on the one hand, some of the theology of money can be very confusing and paradoxical. The Bible contains many warnings about wealth. Scripture says that the love of money is the root of all evil. Very, very stern warnings. Jesus says that it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven.
Very, very stern warnings. On the other hand, frequently wealth is a blessing of God. There's more about money in the Bible than almost anything. I was really wrestling with a lot of things. I read a story. I'll tell details on this one because it's not personal to me or to my own experience.
It doesn't expose anything that I think is best kept private. I read a story about a man named John Lake. John Lake lived, he was born I think back in the late 1870s, something or other. This man had had a very difficult childhood and really struggled with, in his early adult life, really, really struggled with faith and seeing God's power actually expressed in any way.
He had a really incredible experience where in his early testimony of his wife dying and then being raised from the dead, it was a remarkable thing that came at a crisis point in his life. After that period of time, when he came to a situation and he realized that things were changing, he'd gone on and he was very, very successful in business.
He was, I think he was in the real estate business and the insurance business. He became very wealthy in Chicago or somewhere up in the Midwest. He was very, very wealthy, but he felt God asking him to, he felt a burden to go into more of, to leave the world of business and to go into full-time preaching and a full-time ministry.
And during this period of time, in general, one of the things that many people do, and I don't think it's wrong to do, but many people who have this desire is they work to build up their financial resources so that they can provide for themselves. Frequently, if a man is called to ministry, he needs to provide for himself.
And we have the scriptural example of doing that, of using the work of your own hands to provide for yourself so that you can fulfill your work of ministry. But this man Lake was very, very wealthy, but he found that his desire and appetite for wealth was diminished. And he felt that he had the desire and the need to go internationally and to minister internationally.
And so he began systematically giving away all of his money over a period of time. And then he bought him and his family, I think he had six children, five, six children, something like that. He bought passage for him, his children, and his wife to, I believe, South Africa.
You have to go and look at the details. Well-known man. And he didn't have the money. He'd given away all of the money from his great wealth to go and work as a missionary. He bought tickets on the boat, to get on the boat and had nothing left to start over in Africa.
Nothing. I believe the account was that when he was standing in line for the immigration's office, he had to buy some new tax stamps and he didn't have the money to buy a new tax stamp. Somebody walked up to him out of the blue, gave him a check that was enough to buy the money to buy the tax stamps.
When they were on the dock in Africa, a woman walked up to him and started asking about some details and said that the Lord had spoken to her and showed her that she was to provide for him a place to live and a place for him and his children to live.
And I forget any more of the details. It's been a long time. But those details of that testimony encouraged me deeply at a time when I was really struggling because I realized this. I have never believed that it is honoring and being very Christian-y today. I hope you'll appreciate it.
But I frequently, I just want to yell and scream a lot of times at so many people who profess Christianity and who are poor and broke, not due to impressive and good circumstances, but due to their own laziness and foolishness. It is so absolutely dishonoring, dishonoring to Christian testimony to see so many lazy, broke Christians in a world of plenty who through character weakness spend everything.
And I have always been troubled by that. It really bothers me deeply to see that. And so often Christians will put kind of spiritual sounding language on it. "Oh, I'm just trusting and learning." Meanwhile, there's money flying out all over the place. In the United States of America and in many wealthy countries, especially when there is almost no persecution against Christians, to not become wealthy is largely, in my mind, largely frequently a character flaw.
Now, if somebody is giving away all their money and that's why they don't have money, that's different. But if somebody is just spending frivolously and heedlessly and not investing wisely, not being careful with their money and just saying, "Whoa," kind of bumbling along through life, I find that to be very dishonoring.
On the flip side though, I don't believe that being wealthy is necessarily always a great thing. There's a story in the Bible about where the man called the rich young ruler comes to Jesus and says, "What do I need to do?" And Jesus says, "Well, keep the law." And the man says, "I've done all this." And he says, "What else?" And Jesus says, "Go, give all your money away to the poor and come and follow me." And when I heard the story of Lake, it really brought me to a place of confidence that I had struggled with for a long time to say, "It is not dishonoring to be a servant of many and grow very wealthy because of it." It's very honoring.
Wealth that is accumulated from honorable conduct and service is absolutely right. But wealth should never control you. And I made a deal with the Lord in that crucial time early in my life. I said to Him, I said, "I'll do my best, but if you ever say, 'Give everything away,' I'll do it.
In the meantime, I'm going to seek to be faithful." For me, that was a pivotal, pivotal decision and it brought me a place of freedom. And to this day, I guess I've never really talked about this in public, but here it is. To this day, that is still a commitment that I have.
I will be faithful and I will seek to serve as many people as possible. And I expect that the wealth will come in ever increasing amount, but I will never close my fist and hold onto it and allow the money to control me. That's why that testimony of Lake was so important to me.
It's one thing to see a broke man give away a little bit of money. It's another thing to see a wealthy man give it all away. Lake actually went on, if you read the stories and things, he had an amazing work. Thousands, tens of thousands, I want to say hundreds of thousands, but I think that would be a bit of an example.
Tens of thousands of people were healed through his ministry, physical healing. He was very active in public healing ministry, incredible medically documented miracles and all, but he went through significant financial need. Just because God met his need in that line there with the man and the woman, doesn't mean he didn't face his own crisis.
There was a point in time at which he was actually accused by enemies of mismanaging money. It was that the accusations were unfounded. He was accused by some of his enemies of mismanaging money and all of the donations and support that had been going to his ministry dried up.
There was a remarkable scene where the men that he was supporting out in the bush in Africa who were preaching came together and they said, "We're going to keep going no matter what. If we starve, our only request is you come and bury us." Many on his ministry team died due to lack of money and died because of lack of food.
They ran out. So that life of faith was never easy for him, but it was real. And that is the point that I'm trying to drive at today with money. Give. Give of everything that you have. Give now. Give your money. Give your time. If you don't have money, give time.
If you don't have time, give of your stuff. But become a giver in practice because giving is one of the most clear expressions of love. At the beginning of this show, I said I don't like Valentine's Day. You say, "Well, why do you not like Valentine's Day?" I detest it.
You say, "Well, everything associated with Valentine's Day is good, right?" Give. If I give my wife pink flowers, and I'm not a, like I said, I'm not really a curmudgeon. Give your wife flowers or whatever you want to do. But that giving has to go every day. I've just seen so many people in my life who do the biggest work to put together a fancy-looking date on Valentine's Day and then don't lay down their life for their wife the next day.
If you lay down your life every day and you love every day, then Valentine's Day can be a beautiful cherry on top. I like to go on nice dates with my wife. I think it's fun. I'd rather do it the day after Valentine's Day or arrange something fun to do with the crowds.
But those special experiences are the cherry on top of a life. They don't change anything. They just add a little bit of sweetness to everything else. So in closing, let me encourage you. Give. Show your love for others by giving. Give it all away while you're alive if possible.
Another so crucial, I've preached so much today. I hope this has been encouraging to you. But Jesus said, "Don't lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust corrupt and where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where moth and rust do not corrupt and where thieves do not break in and steal.
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. If you will consistently practice giving, giving of money, giving of yourself, if you will consistently love in deed, meaning in action, not in word, but love in action, love in doing, in deed, you'll be richer than anyone else.
So I love that quote that Bob Goff started his chapter with. "I used to think being loved was the greatest thing to think about. But now I know love is never satisfied just thinking about it." I may, I'm not ready to commit to it yet, but I may talk more about money and marriage and love this next week to go along with February 14 or maybe I'll talk about hyperinflation.
I haven't decided yet. But the point of all of this is to say that love is something that goes deep. Love is not an emotional feeling that you get when you see a sexy looking woman walk by and you experience love at first sight or a hot looking man if you're a woman.
Love is something that gives. Love is an action. And a good way for you to practice that action is through the giving of money now. It's so, so impactful. "He was working in his garden when I happened by, He waved me over with a look in his eye, And started breaking off some ears of corn He said hey boy today this corn is yours right, Boil it up for your supper tonight, Cause I've learned it's true what my family used to say, And nothing's quite as good until you've given away, If you want more happy then your heart will hold, If you want to stand tall and if the truth were told, Take whatever you have and give it away, If you want less lonely and a lot more fun, And deep satisfaction when the day is done, Throw your heart wide open and give it away, Yeah, there's been a lot of water all over the dam, Since the day in the garden with my Uncle Sam, So I hope you'll hear these words I have to say, There are two kinds of folks, There's takers and givers, There's righteous and complainers, And big hearted liberals, It depends on how we choose to spend our days, Cause we can afford all we've got, Or give it all away, If you want more happy then your heart will hold, If you want to stand tall and if the truth were told, Take whatever you have and give it away, If you want less lonely and a lot more fun, And deep satisfaction when the day is done, Throw your heart wide open and give it away, If you want more happy then your heart will hold, If you want to stand tall and if the truth were told, Take whatever you have and give it away, If you want less lonely and a lot more fun, And deep satisfaction when the day is done, Throw your heart wide open and give it away, Give it away, you gotta give it away, Give it away, you gotta give it, give it away, Give it away, you gotta give it away, Give it away, if you want more happy then your heart will hold, If you want to stand tall and if the truth were told, Take whatever you have and give it away, If you want less lonely and a lot more fun, And deep satisfaction when the day is done, Throw your heart wide open and give it away, If you want more happy then your heart will hold, If you want to stand tall and if the truth were told, Take whatever you have and give it away, Give it away, you gotta give it, give it away, Give it away, give it away, give it away, give it away, give it away, give it away, give it away.
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