You cannot make any sense out of life or realize the free flow of substance in your experience until you begin to see yourself as a giver. You may need to change your approach to life, where you think “give” instead of “get.” … Meditate long on this point, for it is one of the most important keys of the prosperity law.

Life for the whole person is a giving process. We are not talking specifically about church giving, giving to charity, and so forth. There are many channels through which your giving may be funneled. We are talking about attitudes toward life, the basic awareness that life is a matter of developing or unfolding from within. It is knowing that life is not something to get but something to express. It is the fulfilling awareness that your business is always the express business, no matter what name your worldly vocation may bear. …

“What's in it for me?” You may be saying this of your present job, perhaps out of a feeling that you are not adequately compensated for the work you do and the responsibilities you shoulder. If you discover the wonder of giving, you will find a great blessing of inner fulfillment in your work, which will lead to better work, and by the law of causation, to a greater experience of affluence, which may come through your job or through many different channels. The law is exact: If you give, really work in a giving consciousness, you must receive. If you, at this point, still ask the question, “What's in it for me?” then you are being grossly underpaid, even if your salary is in six figures. If all you get out of your work is a paycheck, you are shortchanging yourself.

An itinerant preacher went to a neighboring parish to preach by invitation, taking his young son with him. As they entered the church, he saw a contribution box, and following his good instincts, he deposited a half-dollar. After his sermon was completed and the congregation had departed, the minister-host said, “We are not a very prosperous parish, and all we can pay is what is in the contribution box.” So he opened the box and presented the visitor with the half-dollar, all that had been put in. The visitor thanked him and went his way, if not rejoicing, at least resigned. They walked in silence for a distance, and the wise young lad said, “Gee, Dad, if you had put more in you would have gotten more out.” Such is the great law of giving. …

Jesus clearly articulated the divine law: “Give, and it will be given to you” (Luke 6:38). The divine flow requires but one thing of you: your consent to be a receiving channel. It is like the water faucet that must be opened to the flow in order that the water may flow forth freely. Jesus was stressing the need to get into a giving consciousness in order to sustain the flow of good into your life. He did not mean simply money giving. Often the religious book or teacher will talk out of a self-interest and insist that the giving must go to the church. The giving is a state of consciousness that may eventuate in many different ways. But the important thing is to think “give”! Say to yourself, “I will think ‘give' today. I will think ‘give' every day of my life.” The law is clear. It promises: Think “give,” and you will get. It is a fundamental key to achieving prosperity.
 

This excerpt is from the Unity House® book, Spiritual Economics, by renowned Unity minister, Eric Butterworth.