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A daily thought to keep you going successfully through your life!

• Part 3 of an Interview with Rick Warren

  Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. For instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million copies, it made me instantly very wealthy.
  
  It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with before. I don't think God gives you money or notoriety for your own ego or for you to live a life of ease. So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money, notoriety and influence. He gave me two different passages that helped me decide what to do, II Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72
  
  First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our lifestyle one bit. We made no major purchases.
  
  Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from the church.
  
  Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace Plan to plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, and educate the next generation.
  
  Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years since I started the church, and I gave it all back. It was liberating to be able to serve God for free.
  
  We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions?
  Popularity?
  Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism?
  
  Or am I going to be driven by God's purposes (for my life)?
  When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say, God, if I don't get anything else done today, I want to know You more and love You better.
  God didn't put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He's more interested in what I am than what I do. That's why we're called human beings, not human doings.

  
  
  See you tomorrow, God willing.
  There'll be another Success Thought here for you then.
  Meanwhile, be blessed in all you do today!
  PastorGrace.com