How To Quantify Your Happiness

“How to Quantify Your Happiness: The Alchemy of Virtue”

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• □  NT—Acts 20:35
  • University of British Columbia and Harvard Business School study: “Regardless of how much income

    each person made [in the national sample], those who spent money on reported greater happiness, while those who spent more on did not. . . . The employees [in the Boston firm] who devoted more of their bonus to gifts for or toward charity consistently reported greater benefits than employees who simply spent money on needs. . . . Participants [in the random $5 and $20 giveaway] who spent the windfall on reported feeling happier at the end of the day than those who spent the money on .” (www.publicaffairs.ub.ca/media/releases/2008/mr-08-032.html)

  • Study conclusion: “You are happier when you give than when you receive”
  • Jesus: “It is more blessed to than to .” (Acts 20:35)
  • Three benefits from the blessing of giving:

     #1—Whenyougive,youaredrawnawayfromyourown.
    o Ed Gungor: “ touches a nerve in us that nothing else does. We look a lot like

    God when we do it. When you give, you defy the fear that you won’t have enough. You insult greed, the impulse to acquire or possess more than one needs or deserves. If you really believe that God owns it all and that he is your source and provider, giving will be a simple matter. . . . According to Jesus, giving keeps your heart in motion toward God and away from material things. . . . Your heart will follow the direction of your giving.” (Quoted in The Chosen 354)

    •   #2—When you give, you give play to the part of your nature.
    •   #3—When you give, you receive the of God.
  • God is the unlimited of the universe.
    •   Genesis 22:14—“So Abraham called the place The LORD Will And to this day it is said, ‘On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided.’”
    •   Acts14:17—“‘Hehasshownkindnessbygivingyourainfromheavenandcropsintheirseasons; He you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.’”
    •   Philippians4:19—“AndmyGodwill[provide]allyourneedsaccordingtoHisriches in glory through Christ Jesus.”
    •   Since God is the unlimited Provider, is a God-like act.
• □  OT—Malachi 3:10
  • Arthur C. Brooks: “In 2003 while working on a book about charitable giving, I stumbled across a

    strange pattern in my data. Paradoxically, I was finding that donors ended up with more income after making their . This was more than correlation; I found solid evidence that stimulated prosperity.” (http://nyti.ms/1iBHCYm)

  • Malachi 3:10—“Test Me, and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out that there will not be room enough to store it.”
  • “The 90-day Tithe Challenge.”
     TitheyourwayintototheLordofCalvarywhohasbeensofaithfultoyou.  Tithing is a statement of radical in your omnipotent Creator, your unlimited

    Provider, and your never-failing Savior and Friend.

  • “Everything that God could do was done to save a perishing world. ‘God so loved the world, that He

    gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’ God has made it impossible for it to be said that He could have done more than He has done for the fallen race. When He gave His Son, He gave Himself. In one great gift He poured out the whole treasure of heaven. He has revealed a love that defies all , a love that should fill our hearts and lives with gratitude.” (Review and Herald January 14, 1902)

    “Test Me!”