Despite both personal experiences and studies indicating money alone doesn’t bring the good life, countless people think and live and make choices as if it does.

People define the good life in different ways, but everybody wants to live it. After all, what’s the alternative? Living a bad life? A pointless, guilt-ridden, or miserable life? We’d all choose the good life any day, and yet we often don’t understand how to make it happen.

Tom Hsieh worked for a successful network and communications provider, and he later became CEO and co-owner of a telecom consulting firm. Tom and his wife, Bree, chose to live in Pomona, California, then the fourth-largest city in LA County—and the second poorest. They decided to live at or below the median household income there in order to fit in with the neighbors they wanted to reach. 

Attempting to experience the abundant life Jesus spoke of while burying ourselves in material abundance isn’t just difficult; it’s impossible. That’s not because material things are inherently bad. It’s because accumulated stuff suffocates us, crushes us, and blocks us from Jesus.

I wrote my book Giving Is the Good Life because I wanted to clarify what Scripture actually says about how we can experience the abundant life Jesus came to give us. And the answer from God’s Word is so beautiful and hope-giving!