Generosity Unlocks What Money Can't Buy | Allen & Stacy Jo

Welcome to Faithfully Invested with Allen and Stacy Jo Thorne, where we explore how faith meets real talk and biblical wisdom guides everyday life. This show is designed to help faith-driven leaders build a lasting life, business, and legacy. Join us as we dive into God's blueprint for biblical leadership and mission, fostering spiritual growth and Christian wisdom along the way. 🚀

In this episode of Faithfully Invested, Allen and Stacy Jo explore a powerful Kingdom principle:

Generosity unlocks what money can’t buy.

This conversation goes beyond finances. It gets to the heart of trust, surrender, and freedom.

Because the truth is—money can give you comfort, options, and control…
 but it cannot give you peace, freedom, or alignment with God.

Only a surrendered, generous heart can do that.

In this episode, we unpack:

• Why generosity is rooted in trust, not obligation
 • How fear often disguises itself as wisdom
 • Why holding tightly can actually limit freedom
 • What Acts 2 teaches about living with glad and generous hearts
 • How God multiplies what we release
 • Why generosity includes more than money (time, forgiveness, obedience)

📖 Scripture References:
 Acts 2:38
 Acts 2:44–47
 Proverbs 11:24–25
 2 Timothy 1:7
 Matthew 11:29

Key Takeaway:
 Generosity is not loss. It is alignment. And alignment unlocks freedom.

Reflection Question:
 Where are your hands still closed—and what is God inviting you to trust Him with?

If this episode encouraged you, share it with someone who needs this reminder and leave a review to help others discover biblical truth that transforms lives.

When you are faithfully invested, God brings the increase.

Reviving Recovery: Unbound is now online! We worship, we learn, we break out into gender specific groups and we journal with each other and with the Holy Spirit. If your heart is stirring listening to this, pay attention Healing begins here. Click the link below to join us at Reviving Recovery:Unbound.

www.revivingrecovery.com

See you in the room!

Transcript

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (00:00.482)
Hey, welcome back to Faithfully Invested, where we explore biblical truth concerning leadership, marriage and mission. I'm Stacy Jo.

You're not Stacy Jo. Don't confuse people. You're Allen Layne. I am. I am. It's kind of funny though. It's funny to me. It's funny to him. But many things are funny to him. I like your Jesus's King shirt. Yeah, it was a I really I had hoped that I had one of those nice pink.

sweatshirts that you got on. Well, I can probably get you one. Shout out to my girl Katie with Merch for Jesus. know, check out her website, MerchForJesus.com because this is the most comfortable sweatshirt I own.

Yeah, for sure. Up to and including the other Merch for Jesus sweatshirt that you couple of them. Right? Probably fixing to get a third one here in the near future because I love them. Yeah. Anywhere. Anyhow. wanted a sweatshirt but I didn't get one. got a, but I did get a pretty cool Jesus is King man shirt. Well, I'm going to make sure you get one of her sweatshirts. Well, we live in South Florida, so the time for sweatshirts is just about over. Well.

Still, you'll have it for next year. anyhow, today we are diving into something that sounds beautiful on the surface, but can get kind of uncomfortable fast when it hits your wallet, your calendar, or even your control. Because we are discussing, or I should say we're still discussing, the power of biblical generosity. And not

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (01:52.651)
casual generosity, not spare change generosity. We're talking about generosity that actually breaks chains. Absolutely. We've been talking about biblical generosity for this whole season and it might have been a little squirmy for you all, but it's our experience because we weren't always aces at this.

And we just wanted to And I was getting to that point, but there are points that I mean, there's no perfection here. Believe that if you, you know, believe if you only believe two things, believe that Jesus is Lord and there's no perfection here. But anyway, so we don't.

generosity and biblical stewardship and financial security and financial responsibility from a biblical perspective is, these are subjects that most people glaze over and sugarcoat, except for Ramsey, he really lays it out there. But there's no sugarcoat in here, folks. We just go by the truth, the capital T truth, that is God's Word.

the rubber hits the road, we find out that closed fists don't just block a blessing, they block our freedom. Yeah, it doesn't get much more real than that. mean, seriously, you know, just ignore the urge to run away right now and just stick it out here with us because the Lord's truth isn't about guilt.

but it's actually about deliverance. is about deliverance and it's about, and deliverance is freedom. It is. And that's what we're talking about. that's, and it may sound cliche, but hey, it's biblical truth. Whoever's set free by the Son is free indeed. That's right. And this is a...

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (03:55.7)
And biblical stewardship on finances is one of the main topics that Jesus talked about. There's a lot of talk on that. must have, you know, the Lord must have wanted us to thoroughly understand because it's all through His words. but... You know, but...

You know, I just want to say most people don't struggle with generosity because they're, you know, greedy villains who just, you know, want to hold on to everything. They struggle because they've been scared before. You know, they're scared that there wouldn't be enough or scared that the market would shift or that maybe income would drop or something unexpected might happen. And when you've carried the weight of running a business and I speak firsthand,

experience here, know, running a business, leading a family, stewarding payroll, you know, when you're responsible for other people's families, right? You know, the financial responsibility really gets heavy and it feels wise and responsible at times to hold tightly to the funds that we have. Right. Agreed. And by the world standard, it makes sense to do that. Right.

I still and we've mentioned it several times through the season is that and we we really hit it hard and in our unbound ministry is that faith makes a fool of what makes sense. That's right. And just so we're not stepping on any toes, that's we give credit to Hillsong United for that. Yeah, that's one of the best records. Empires was a great record. Faith makes a fool of what makes sense. So just because it makes sense,

doesn't mean it's it's right. But anyway,

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (05:52.974)
Faith makes a fool of what makes a Well, I think especially as leaders.

you know, we can justify it when we say I'm just being prudent. And sometimes we are but sometimes what we call prudence is actually fear in disguise. Right? That's that's so true. And there have been moments in our own lives where God has nudged us to give in a way that stretches us. And I wish I could say that our first reaction was always just pure excitement. But it's not it wasn't.

you know, looked like reviewing the numbers and it was, you know,

doing the addition and the subtraction and the math that comes along with that. Trying to make sense of it. Trying to make sense of it. And it was OK, Lord, you know, asking him, OK, Lord, but can we talk about next quarter? Because, you know, maybe next quarter is not looking as good as this last quarter or the quarter before. Right. Like he's like he's not out front. Right. Like he hasn't already paved the way, you know?

I think I think God was like the original to infinity and beyond. Yeah.

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (07:13.462)
And that internal negotiation is real. Yeah, it's real. And if you're listening and you're thinking, that's me, you're not a bad Christian, you're human. And that's why we're talking about this today right here on Faithfully Invested. You are in the right place. And the good news is people that stretching that you're so concerned with, that's also where growth occurs and faith deepens. And as my grandfather would have said,

I think even the dogs had an issue with that. Well, you know, I have never heard you say that before. So, you know, I have to ask was I you haven't never really talked that much about your grandfather, but was he was he Native American that he would say wahoo? No, was Pentecostal. All right. OK, so.

It's something you know, those memories pop back sometimes, you know, when we used to go visit Rex with that would echo through the house in the morning. He'd wake up saying that. Oh, yeah. Until everybody else was up. Oh, the wake up call. But anyway, digress. So the challenge, what is the challenge? Because when the when the.

The nitty gritty child, when it gets down, when the rubber hits the road, the nitty gritty challenge isn't really about money. It's the real challenge.

is trust. Yeah. The real challenge is trust. And financial decision making just exposes where our trust is thin. So what? So just like we do here, let's let's take it to the word. And today we're going to take it to

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (09:13.774)
the Acts of the Apostle, chapter 2, 44 - 47. This gives us a powerful picture of the early church. And it says, all who believed, and I really emphasize that, all who believed, because everything comes back to what we believe. That's certainly, we've talked about that in earlier episodes, and we'll talk about it again and again, because

everything comes down to what we believe.

What Acts chapter 2 says that all those who believed were, they were together and they had all things in common. How nice would that be? They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. They ate together and were glad and had generous hearts. They were glad with generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people.

Not just some of the people. All the people. the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. That sort of radical generosity is from the heart. Yeah. But what about the question, what brought them to such radical transformation and generosity? So I'm so glad that you asked in order to get.

In order to get that answer, we got to take it back to verse 38. And here in verse 38, the people asked Peter and the other apostles what they must do. And Peter proclaimed boldly, I might add. And this is, this is.

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (11:06.092)
Pretty common verse. Peter says, repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. And there it is. It's receiving Jesus Christ's forgiveness.

of your sins and the Holy Spirit's guidance. That's what led the people to such radical generosity. That's what transforms the heart. Jesus and the Holy Spirit transform perspectives when we let them move in and through us. And we don't just say this because that's what Luke wrote in the book of Acts. We say this, and I will shout this from the rooftops, the mountaintops.

to whoever's listening and to whoever's not listening, hopefully to many who don't want to listen, but just so that they will hear our experience, and that always leads back to Jesus and the Holy Spirit transforming our...

perspectives because we let them move in and through us. When we have a pliable heart for the Lord and we're open to his worldview, we can be freed to radical generosity. And that's the truth. That's what we're talking about. But notice what followed as...

As they received forgiveness of sins and the Holy Spirit, they joy followed. They operated from glad and generous hearts. Community followed. They praised God for having favor over all people. And they experienced after receiving forgiveness of their sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (13:00.878)
they experience growth. Verse 47 says,

And the Lord added to their numbers daily those who had been saved. So here poses, this just, it poses a very simple question with a very clear answer. Did you know that we serve a God of multiplication, not addition? Yeah. I really love that. And you know, Proverbs 11: 24 - 25 says something that

actually could disturb our logic. know, one gives freely yet grows all the richer. Another withholds what he should give and only suffers want. And whoever refreshes others will be refreshed. Odd as it may seem here on earth by worldly standards.

withholding doesn't create security, it actually creates internal lack. And giving doesn't create vulnerability, although vulnerability is not a bad thing, it creates expansion. So the real challenge is, you know, we think holding tight keeps our finances safe, but most often holding tightly is the very thing that keeps us bound up. Right, absolutely.

When we were putting this together, I recall, I've heard some arguments on this verse, aligning this verse from Acts chapter 2 with the political movement called socialism. And we're not discussed, we're not getting into politics, please don't. But they say, well, look at that.

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (14:56.494)
socialism and communism is that they're selling their stuff for people in need and that they're transferring wealth and that and they're taking it out of context to support their political view because that's not what socialism and communism is. Socialism, but there are people who use, they distort the truth for their own,

their own benefit. But what socialism and communism is, and we'll end with this, is that it's the government saying, it's a government movement, it's a government control saying that we're going to shift from your wealth or whatever you have over here as we see fit. It's the government telling you what you'll do with that. Whereas this was a movement of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.

It was a transformation of hearts. They didn't need to be told. The community didn't need to be told. They asked a question, what do we got to do? And Peter said, repent.

and be baptized in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins. And that transforms heart when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and brings you the truth that transforms a heart and you don't need to be told by the government. So it actually has nothing to do with that. So just I wanted to throw that out there. That's for free. You're welcome. Well, I just you know, money represents more than currency. It does. mean, it represents control and independence.

security and as one finds security and money over God as a provider, then it represents an idol, actually. Yeah, and when we decide, if we make the decision to hold tightly to that or to focus too intently on the shiny stuff, we lose sight of what truly matters. And what truly matters is our provider's peaceful presence. Yeah. If we lose sight of our provider, of God's presence,

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (17:07.184)
over what I call the shiny lies, the stuff, then we're not in a good position.

So let's run through what actually occurs within us when we sense the Holy Spirit prompting us. Maybe it's a financial prompt to bless someone or maybe it's to invest in something that's kingdom focused, not worldly focused, and that stretches you beyond what you think you can withstand. And immediately, you know, your logical brain starts building a defense case. It starts saying, you know, well, what if revenue drops? know, what if something unexpected happens?

What if I need this later? know, but scarcity doesn't usually shout, you know, it whispers, hey, there might not be enough. There might not be enough if you do that. Maybe you need to rethink that.

My, my, that, that voice in my head, I'm not sure if she, if it's Australian or British, but it's like, hello mate, might not be enough, hey, might consider that. Right. But, but you know, all, I mean, all we can share with them is, our experience and.

And based on our experience, we've seen that we serve a brilliantly generous God. We do. Brilliantly generous. And He has never prompted us to...

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (18:33.342)
assist beyond our means and has not come through on his generous end. Boy howdy ain't that the truth. Are we back to the boy howdy stuff? Boy howdy we are back to the boy howdy stuff. Anyway that's the truth. He never

He never doesn't come through. He's our provider. I mean, he's God. But I'd like to back up to what you were saying about scarcity. Is that?

Someone someone that has more than enough sometimes Still lives like they like there's not right, you know, yeah some of the yeah that happens to something we Need to be aware of you know, can tie faithfully And you can still clutch on to the rest of it real tightly. Yeah, so I would ask you Have you have you forgotten that it's all his in the first place?

We covered that a few episodes ago in this enlightening season. You can be generous publicly out in front of everybody. You can be generous publicly, but you can operate privately from fear. So have we forgotten how he has seen us through so much other stuff before? Have we forgotten?

that He's a good, good Father. Do we really think that He's going to leave us hang out to dry now after He's shown Himself time and time again, faithful over the years? Do you really think that if He says,

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (20:29.804)
do this, I want you to give this, and this is how much, and this is, because we get that sort of clarity. Do you really think if he's gonna give us that information and tell us to go, that he wouldn't back it up? He's the provider, and whatever he provides, we're just, we're stewarding as he.

Ask us to yeah, but you know, I have had to ask myself before you know, am I protecting provision? Or am I protecting control? Because control seems safe You know when I'm controlling things it seems safe

but it actually is more like a two-ton heavy thing, as Allen would say. And when you're gripping too tightly, when you're calculating or you're preparing for loss, we're supposed to think higher thoughts. we serve a god of multiplication, like you said. So why would we prepare for loss? Because that is not freedom.

you know, remember our baseline in Acts says that they had glad and sincere hearts, glad, joyful hearts. So that's our baseline. And again, our experience shows that well-intentioned but self-protective, finite minds cannot out calculate God.

We just cannot cannot cannot out out calculate God. That's some truth lady. She's preaching today. She's preaching today friends very

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (22:21.186)
From experience. Absolutely, from experience. and we say it and we say it and we say it. We don't get this information from a book. We've read some books, but what we share here, it's more than knowledge. It's experiential truth because that's really what's changed our lives. That's what has shifted our paradigm over the years is our experience as we walk with them.

walk with them as and as we also and I can speak from experience as I've decided to go my own way and and just you know do my own thing and that doesn't ever work out well no no but he's he's got a grace man grace grace grace come on I told you that wasn't the way to go come on back here come on back here okay but you know you have to ponder it transactionally and yeah if we must yeah if we must be

transactional about it, consider this. Generosity, it doesn't only impact the recipient, it moves something into giver as well. Yeah, it does. Yeah, does. Generosity shatters greed. Generosity shatters fear and isolation because when we have open hands, when we open our hands, we're saying, God, you are the source.

not this money, not you are the source. And he says, that's right. Now you're getting it. Let's go. So let's get practical here because we don't want to just inspire you. We aim to equip. And the first thing you have to do is you have to name the fear. So if generosity makes you feel uncomfortable,

pause and ask the Lord what or even ask, I guess ask yourself or or the Lord and the Lord. I say get with him too and say what am I afraid of losing? Is it security? Is it status? Maybe it's comfort. Could be or control.

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (24:39.606)
Because the truth of the matter is you can't break a chain that you won't identify. You have to know what it is that you need to break. Yeah. And you know, and you know, there's something that says, I should know this, but,

I think it's in Jeremiah. I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure it's in Jeremiah saying that just saying a wound's not there, just saying that there's no challenge doesn't mean there's no challenge. You know, there's a challenge. but moving. Second, we've got to remember the source. Right. And and in this case, that's capital S source. Right. Because the source is always our Creator, Father God. Everything comes from him and cattle on a thousand hills. Right.

All his, that's a lot of cattle. It is. And then some. Yeah, then our job, or our careers, not the source. Business, it's not the source. Our investments, not the source. Our creator, Father God, is the capital S source. And the question, yeah, we ask a lot of questions, because there are a lot of angles to.

to ponder here and there's a lot of questions to, maybe we don't have the answer, but he does. The question right now is, do you believe it? Do you believe that God is the source of everything that you have? We ask this because again, everything rises from what we believe. So if you forget the source, then you grip tightly to the supply.

But when you remember the source, you can freely release the supplier. Yeah. He said, you know, your job is not your source and your business is not your source and your investments. Those are all great vehicles. Absolutely. But there's a difference between the vehicle and the source. So.

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (26:47.116)
Yeah, those are great vehicles. Sure. But bless it all. Yes, bless. I mean, I see. the job comes from the Lord. The business comes from the Lord. The investments come from the Lord. He has supplied all of those things. So he makes a way. He makes a way. Doesn't he? But third, I would go so far as in Jesus cases that hey, he is the way and the truth and the life. Right. But third,

is to practice stretching generosity, not recklessly and not irresponsibly, but still stretching. And if your giving never stretches you, it's probably not breaking anything. So chains don't fall off from comfort. No, they certainly don't. No. No chains in comfort, mate. No, no. He is the mighty chain breaker. He is, he is. And generosity.

It's not just about money, it's about trust. It's about our heart posture. It's about advancing toward the kingdom and hospitality, mentorship, and forgiveness. forgiveness. You can't forget forgiveness. You can't forget forgiveness. That's good. Write that one down. You can't forget forgiveness. Hey, don't forget forgiveness. But sometimes we hoard influence more than we hoard income. Something to be aware of.

But when we operate with open hands, when he brings us to a point to give freely, that's a sure sign of freedom.

Yes. Absolutely. Yes. Absolutely. And here's something powerful, know, Proverbs says, whoever refreshes others will be refreshed. Like I stated earlier. And that refreshment is internal fruit. It's peace, it's joy, it's faithfulness. And when generosity flows, you're lighter because you've yoked up with Jesus so that you may learn from him. You know, his yoke is easy and his burden is always lighter.

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (28:58.09)
And that's freedom. That's when we can walk lighter and yoke up with him. That is true freedom. That's it. And, you know, it doesn't matter. And we last week, we told our friends at Unbound.

on Monday nights at seven o'clock on Zoom, unbound that Matthew 11, 29B, if we mention it every week, then it won't be enough. He said, Jesus says, take my yoke upon you and learn from me. And he slapped me with this one about two years ago. that half a verse,

doesn't go away because that's it. Take my yoke upon you says the savior of all mankind and learn from me and that's what we do. That's what I do the rest of my days. So as we're winding down here, here's your question for the week. Where are your hands closed?

Don't have to answer it now. Please don't answer it quickly. We'd encourage you to sit with him and ask the Holy Spirit, hands closed, closed fist. Are you holding on to control? Are you holding on to finances, time, opportunity? Are you holding on to unforgiveness? Ooh.

Yeah. And then take one act of obedience.

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (30:38.21)
You know, just only one. That's all we're saying is one. We're not asking you to do everything all at once, but not, you know, and do that not because somebody pressured you, not because we pressured you or we brought it up, but because the Holy Spirit prompted you. know, freedom doesn't come from hearing a message about generosity. It just doesn't. It comes from practicing it. And freedom really only arrives through experience. So remember, you know, as Allen said, I think you said this earlier,

I could be mistaken or maybe it's in my head. I don't know but closed fist. Don't just block blessing Yeah, they block freedom that flows from open hands, right? Absolutely

And if we're going to lead in marriage, if we're going to lead in business and mission, we can't lead from fear because, you know, Paul told Timothy, God did not in in 2 Timothy 1:7 he said, God did not give you a spirit of fear. He gave you a spirit of love, power and a sound mind. And we lead from trust found in victory. Trust looks and feels and smells and tastes like surrender. And I know that can be a hard word to say.

sometimes. But we must surrender because it's never a bad thing. When we have our eyes and our hearts and our minds focused on Jesus, it's really sweet surrender. It is sweet surrender. Right. I learned that the hard way. Right. Me too. Me too. But I would love for you to offer up a prayer over that. Absolutely.

So let's pray. Father, we ask you to reveal any place where fear is blocking us today. We believe that you did not give us a spirit of fear, Lord, and we ask that you...

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (32:41.08)
that you clear away, Lord. We release fear to you, Lord. We detach ourselves from the spirit of fear. We release fear to you, Lord Jesus, as we receive your perfect love. That drives out fear, and we thank you as we release fear, as we release attachment to the shiny things, We receive

your love. We receive your power and we receive your sound mind. We thank you for love, power and a sound mind. We ask that you make us bold in generosity, that you grow us.

from generous hearts that you transform us from the inside out so that we might.

be as generous as you call us to be. We ask that you.

Make us light and spirit.

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (33:52.652)
We release the burden to you. Whatever we're holding onto, we release the burden to you, And we take your yoke upon us.

in.

We only seek to learn from you. We seek to learn from you, Lord Jesus. So what's your word today?

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (34:21.922)
We thank you for your guidance. We thank you for your Holy Spirit of truth who comes to bring us all the truth about ourselves and to fill our hearts, minds and spirits with a new perspective of what we.

Allen & Stacy Jo Thorne (34:43.896)
think we know about the world around us? Would you?

Show us the truth. We thank you for your truth. We thank you for your presence. We leave all of this with you, Lord Jesus. It's in your name we pray, amen. Amen. Amen. You know, if this stirred something in you today, you know, don't brush it aside. Just act on it. Act on it today, because you will be better tomorrow. And...

Just, you know, we end every episode reminding you to stay faithfully invested because when you do, God brings the increase. He does. He absolutely does. God bless you. And we hope you join us again next time. Take care. God bless.