Not, how much of my money will I give to God, but, how much of God’s money will I keep for myself?
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes a mindset of stewardship rather than ownership, urging individuals to consider how they use resources entrusted to them.
John Wesley's quote challenges conventional thinking about wealth and generosity. It provokes reflection on the relationship between personal finance and faith, suggesting that rather than simply deciding how much to give away, individuals should consider how much of what they possess is truly theirs, as it all ultimately belongs to God. This calls for a sense of responsibility towards the resources we have, encouraging a more thoughtful approach to money and generosity.
In practice
During a church service when discussing financial stewardship.
I continue to dream and pray about a revival of holiness in our day that moves forth in mission and creates authentic community in which each person can be unleashed through the empowerment of the Spirit to fulfill God's creational intentions.
I plainly felt that, had God given me such a retirement with the companion I desired, I should have forgotten the work for which I was born and have set up my rest in this world.
I asked long ago,'What must I do to be saved?' The Scripture answered, 'Keep the commandments, believe, hope, love.' I was early warned against laying, as the Papists do, too much stress on outward works, or on a faith without works, which as it does not include, so it will never lead to true hope or charity.
Prayer is where the action is.
I saw that giving even all my life to God (supposing it possible to do this and go no further) would profit me nothing unless I gave my heart, yea, all my heart, to Him.
In using all means, seek God alone. In and through every outward thing, look only to the power of His Spirit, and the merits of His Son. Beware you do not get stuck in the work itself; if you do, it is all lost labor. Nothing short of God can satisfy your soul. Therefore, fix on Him in all, through all, and above all...Remember also to use all means as means-as ordained, not for their own sake.
I do not know if you remember the tale of the girl who saves the ship under mutiny by sitting on the powder barrel with her lighted torch... and all the time knowing that it is empty? This has seemed to me a charming image of the women of my time. There they were, keeping the world in order... by sitting on the mystery of life, and knowing themselves that there was no mystery.
If we remain grotesquely unequal, we shall lose all sense of fraternity: and fraternity, for all its fatuity as a political objective, turns out to be the necessary condition of politics itself.
Every human has four endowments - self awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom... The power to choose, to respond, to change.
I don't think the law exists to arrive at the truth. If it did, we wouldn't have exclusionary rules, we wouldn't have presumptions of innocence, we wouldn't have proof beyond reasonable doubt. There's an enormous difference between the role of truth in law and the role of truth in science. In law, truth is one among many goals.
The nationalist has a broad hatred and a narrow love.
My language is the sum total of myself.
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