Proverbs 11:24–25 says, “It is possible to give away and become richer! It is also possible to hold on too tightly and lose everything. Yes, the liberal man shall be rich! By watering others, he waters himself” (TLB). You were created to help others.
Those who are best at helping others are always able to see the bright side of other people’s troubles. Practicing the Golden Rule is not a sacrifice, it’s an investment. Don’t give until it hurts, give until it feels good.
What we do for ourselves alone dies with us; what we do for others lives beyond us. An old epitaph reads, “What I gave, I have. What I spent, I had. What I kept, I lost.” No person is more deceived than the selfish person.
No man was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave.
Calvin Coolidge
Invest in the success of others. When you help someone up a mountain, you’ll find yourself close to the summit too.
If you want others to improve, let them hear the nice things you say about them. People will treat you the way you view them. Find the good in everyone. To lead people, make them feel you are behind them. Most people can live for two months on five words of praise and a pat on the back.
The good things you make happen for others, God will make happen for you. “Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord” (Eph. 6:8). You grow spiritually to the extent you give out. By giving out, you create room to grow on the inside.
“Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be yet wiser: teach a just man, and he will increase in learning” (Prov. 9:9). You may be the only Bible some people will ever read. As D. L. Moody once said, “Where one reads the Bible, a hundred read you and me.”
What means most in life is what you’ve done for others. The best way to encourage yourself is to try to encourage somebody else. It’s the duty of all Christians to make it difficult for others to do wrong, easy to do right.
Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.
J. M. Barrie
After people have been around you, do they feel better or worse? Bigger or smaller? Full of faith or fear? Are you leaving people better than you found them?
If you treat people as they are, they will remain as they are. If you treat them as though they were what they could be, you’ll help them become what they could be. There’s no better exercise for the heart than reaching down and lifting someone else up.
