Who doesn’t want their savings to multiply? Not having debts and having enough money to meet our needs and wants, while remaining generous. According to the Bible, the way to multiply our assets is rather surprising!

There is an old saying that goes something like this: “If you pile up manure, it only produces a stench. But if you spread it out on the ground, it becomes a fertilizer that makes plants grow”. There is an important principle behind this old saying. Holding fast to our possessions will always make us want more. If we donate our things, we will never have any needs. Solomon demonstrates that to live in abundance, we need to be a person who gives freely. “There is one who scatters, and yet increases all the more, and there is one who withholds what is justly due, and yet it results only in poverty” (Proverbs 11:24 NASB).

This proverb goes against all common sense. How can our assets grow if we just keep spreading them? We might think that we are going to increase our wealth by saving it, but Solomon tells us that if we are to increase what we have, we must disperse, or give, what we have right now. Let’s think about it. No farmer harvests produce that he hasn’t planted. He must spread the seeds and let them grow to produce the abundance he needs to earn money. When we give freely of what we have, it ends up coming back to us, in a way.

Let us not be selfish (Luke 12:16-21). The selfish person holds back what they have and even tries to manipulate the people around them to gain more. An example of this type of person is someone who always asks for a discount or complains to a merchant that their product is too expensive. Solomon warns that these people will always be in need because they are greedy. They think if they pay less they will get more when in reality it will end up costing them.

Living in abundance means that we benefit from our generosity. Our simple act of blessing someone in the past comes back to us ten or a hundred times. Jesus wants us to be someone who considers what has been given to them as a blessing from the Lord. He wants us to use what we have to bless others while trusting God to provide for our needs. Let’s make the choice today to be the one who disperses.