It takes money to operate a ministry, and you must master your ministry’s money if you want to see it grow.
Late-night preachers may like to talk about prosperity, but there’s much more to the work of God than money.
Worldly wealth doesn’t last forever, but the things that we do with our money on Earth will matter a lot in Heaven.
The only way to be fruitful with the money God gives us is to find some hard work to do… and then dig in.
Are You a Slave? It’s easy to become a slave to money without ever realizing it. Are you a slave to money? Are you sure? The answer to this question may seem obvious, but take a second to think about it. Not all slaves wear chains. And if you’re like me, there’s a good chance …
Are You a Slave? Read More »
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What is a luxury? What is a necessity? If you’re going to succeed with money, you’ll have to learn to distinguish your wants and needs.
For too much of my life, I spent too much of my money on things I enjoyed without stopping to ask myself if I really needed them. When I started studying what the Bible says about money, though, I learned that my wants and needs were not the same thing.
God’s Plan for my money starts with providing for my needs and the needs of my family. And providing starts with hard work. But once I’ve done the work and earned the money, how should I spend it?
I spent too much of my money on things I enjoyed without stopping to ask myself if I really needed them. tweet this!It’s easy to get confused about what we need in life. Ask 20 people what they need, and you’ll get 20 different answers. Some will be pragmatic: food, shelter, clothing. Others will give you more philosophical answers: we need love, challenges or satisfaction.
Listen to the things that people say in everyday conversation and you’ll hear some outlandish needs: “I really need a Starbucks right now.” “I need to go someplace warm.” “I need a new smartphone.” Maybe you have said some of these things yourself. I know I have.
We often take the luxurious lifestyle of our modern, prosperous age for granted. Visit the Third World, though, and you realize that many things we enjoy aren’t essential to life. We like them. We want them. They make our lives easier and more prosperous. But we don’t need them to survive or even to have healthy, happy families.
You should enjoy luxuries with what’s left over after you have met your family’s needs, tithed, given and saved for the future. tweet this!If you’re going to spend the money God gives you according to His master plan, you need to take a careful inventory of your wants and needs. All too often, western Christians fail to give generously because so much of their income goes to meeting the “needs” of their families. But are they all really needs?
Think about it: Do you need to eat out three times a week? Do you need a new Macbook Pro every few years? Does your family need a late-model SUV, or could you get where you need to go in an eight-year-old station wagon that you paid cash for?
When managing your money, you have to acknowledge that these are all luxuries that belong in the last priority of your financial strategy. You should enjoy luxuries with what’s left over after you have met your family’s needs, tithed, given and saved for the future.
When we confuse our wants and needs, we withhold resources from the Kingdom and create dangerous habits that can lead to real financial trouble. Proverbs 21:17 warns us about this:
Whoever loves pleasure will become poor; whoever loves wine and olive oil will never become rich.
Luxury items are expensive, and if they become regular, habitual aspects of our lives, they can spiral out of control. A nice dinner out every now in then can be a great treat; continually dining at gourmet restaurants will put you in the poorhouse. I enjoy nice food, but all I really need is a simple, healthy, home-cooked meal.
All too often, we squander the resources God has given us by spending them on luxuries instead of necessities. Let’s commit to changing that together. We can start by thinking about the things we really need.
Small indulgences can add up to big financial problems.
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Just because a banker says you can afford something doesn’t mean that you can actually afford it.
When you go to apply for a mortgage to buy a house, your lender is going to ask you some questions about your financial life, plug some numbers into his computer, and then tell you how big a loan you qualify for. You’ll probably be surprised how big that number is, but don’t let him fool you. He’s getting a commission based on how big a loan he sells, so it’s in his best interest to get you into a monster mortgage. It’s in your best interest, however, to make sure that your monthly mortgage payment fits comfortably into your budget.
In this series, we’ve been discussing the ways to make sure that our home mortgages aren’t dragging us into dangerous and costly debt. Among the strategies that we’ve talked about using large down-payments, taking out only fixed-rate loans, and borrowing on 15-year terms. These methods help us to avoid mortgage pitfalls. But there’s still one major danger to steer clear of — borrowing so much money that our monthly payments are too big for our budgets.
All too often, people go to see a mortgage lender without having a good idea of what they should be spending on their monthly mortgage payments. (This usually has to do with the fact that they’re not living according to a good budget.) They let the lender tell them how large a loan they qualify for. Then they borrow that full amount, buy the biggest house they can with it, and spend the next thirty years paying a large percentage of their income to the bank in order to stay current on the mortgage.
What’s the problem with this? Well, using too much of your income to pay for your house leaves you unable to do other things with your money. We often refer to this condition as being “house-poor” — you’ve spent so much money on your fancy home that you aren’t able to afford other things that you really need.
It’s easy to get suckered into big mortgages with big monthly payments. After all, housing is almost always the greatest single expense in your family’s monthly budget. Compared to the cost of renting or owning a home, things like feeding ourselves, buying clothes or keeping the utilities on seem like small expenses. And they are small when you look at them one by one. But when you look at all of your life expenses as a whole, they can add up to much, much more than the cost of your monthly mortgage payment. When you account for all of the annual, semi-regular or one-time expenses that come up over the course of life, you begin to realize that you have much, much more to pay for besides your home.
What this means is that our mortgage payments shouldn’t represent too large a portion of our monthly expenditures. It would be tempting to think that you could spend 50% of your income every month on your mortgage. Many people do. But that leaves those people spread dangerously thin. They may have enough money left over to buy clothes, food and utilities, but they often don’t have enough to build an emergency fund, to save money for their next car purchases or to be generous givers. Often, this leads to a lifetime of bondage to consumer debt.
So, how much of your budget should a mortgage payment represent? That’s going to depend a lot on your particular financial situation. Some financial teachers recommend that you keep your payments to 25% of your monthly take-home pay. Depending on your life circumstances, you may be able to safely go up to 35%. But beyond that, things begin to get risky.
These numbers may sound conservative, and they are. But there’s a point to all of this: Being conservative with our home loans allows us to be liberal with our giving. Having small house payments allows us to invest for a big future. Most importantly, manageable house payments free us from the stress of constantly struggling to make ends meet. If you exercise caution in the size of your mortgage, you’re not going to have the biggest house on the block. What you will have, though, is financial peace.
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Photo by Edward Corpuz. Used under Creative Commons License.
One of the best ways to determine the place that money has in your heart is to look at what you have sacrificed to acquire it, and what you might be sacrificing to keep it. Sometimes, an honest answer to that question can be quite scary.
Money is a tricky thing. We have to use it to get around in this world, and the more adept we become at earning it and using it, the more great things we can accomplish with it. But like the Force, money has a dark side. The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and Jesus tells us that if we’re not careful to master our money, it can make slaves of us.
We’ve talked in theory about a lot of the ways that money can make you a slave: greed, stinginess, envy, debt and the like. But it’s also instructive to study the lives of people who exhibit the signs of financial slavery, to see how it manifests in their life. Fortunately, the Bible gives us numerous examples of such people. In this and coming articles, we’re going to examine what scripture says about these people, starting today with the “Rich Young Ruler.”
The Rich Young Ruler is a well known figure from Jesus’ ministry. It’s unclear why he has come to be known by that moniker (the New Testament text only says that he wealthy — it doesn’t mention his age or authority), but we’ll continue to refer to him by this traditional name. Three of the Gospels recount the story of his dialogue with Jesus. Let’s examine the story as it’s told in Mark 10:17-27.
17 As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
18 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. 19 You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.’”
20 “Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”
21 Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
22 At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.
23 Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!”
24 The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
26 The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, “Who then can be saved?”
27 Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.”
There’s a lot that we can take away from this story. One of the most compelling messages is the fact that money slavery can derail a person who is genuinely seeking to serve God and see His Kingdom come. You see, the Rich Young Ruler was a good, genuine guy. He had been careful to keep the Law of God throughout his whole life. And he had a real enthusiasm for his pursuit of eternal life — the text says that he ran to Jesus and fell at His feet. This is a young man who lived a holy life and was pursing God the best that he knew how.
Jesus saw a lot of potential in this young man, but he also saw one key weakness: He was a slave to his own wealth. Though He may not have known in the natural world that this was a rich man, Jesus prophetically calls out his wealth as the one thing holding him back. He asks him to sell all his possessions, give the money to the poor, and then follow Jesus as a disciple.
Stop for a moment and think about it: This is an astounding opportunity. This man recognizes Jesus as a great teacher and prophet. Jesus loves him, and is offering to bring him into the inner circle. The other men that Jesus invited to follow Him witnessed some of history’s greatest miracles, and went on to be the early leaders of the Christian church. Jesus is giving the Rich Young Ruler a chance to walk in fellowship with the Son of God, and to to play an instrumental role in the advancement of the Kingdom. And yet, the man walks away from it all.
Of course, we know why — despite all that he had going for him, and despite his genuine pursuit of God, the Rich Young Ruler was a money slave. Jesus identified the one thing that he was unwilling to give for the Kingdom of God. And his obsession with his own wealth kept him from the greatest opportunity of his life.
The lesson here is that financial bondage can tie us up in deep places when we’re not looking. Christian people can become money slaves. Righteous people can become money slaves. You can spend your entire life in church, “do everything right,” and still be a money slave. Ask yourself this question: If the call of God came to you, nudging you onto the mission field or into full-time ministry, would an attachment to money hold you back from obedience, and the greatest adventure of your life? For too many of us, it would.
It can be easy to come away from this story with a bleak outlook on money and wealth. After all, Jesus tells his disciples that it’s very difficult for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Why is this? It’ s because God requires our whole hearts, and people with a lot of money have a tendency to value wealth in their hearts above everything else.
That’s not the end of the story, though. Jesus ends the discourse with hope. “With man this is impossible, but not with God,” He said. “With God, all things are possible.” God has the power and the desire to set us free from all kinds of slavery. There are many things holding us back that we can never escape on our own — that’s the nature of fallen man. But the beauty of the gospel is that God redeems us and frees us from everything that is holding us back.
If it’s money that has you in chains, I hope that you’ll allow Him to do the impossible in your life.
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Photo by Brian Gratwicke. Used under Creative Commons License.
It doesn’t matter how many tax dollars and government programs we throw at the problem of poverty — it’s never going away. Because the only real solution comes from the inside out. Diligence is the antidote to poverty.
Poverty is as old as humanity itself, and it’s a terrible thing. Though we think of poverty as a lack of money and resources, it’s much more than that. Poverty is a form of financial slavery. It’s an attitude and a mindset that can be passed from parents to children, trapping entire families in destructive cycles. When the cycles happen over and over again, they can become widespread and systemic, trapping entire nations in destitute conditions.
There is a solution to poverty, but like the problem itself, it comes from inside your heart. tweet this!Governments have been trying to eradicate poverty for generations, but to no avail. But no government can solve a problem that originates in our hearts. There is a solution to poverty, but like the problem itself, it comes from inside your heart. The antidote to poverty is diligence.
It may seem callous and naive to suggest that poor people simply need to work harder. But this is not just my advice: It’s age-old wisdom that comes straight from the wisest (and richest) man in history. Let’s examine Proverbs 10:4 to see what Solomon has to say on the subject of poverty and diligence:
Lazy hands make for poverty,
but diligent hands bring wealth.
In a way, this proverb says something most of us already know — you get money from working hard. But there’s more to it: Poverty comes from laziness, but diligence helps us escape poverty and move into a place of financial freedom.
What exactly is diligence? You may think it’s just another word for hard work, but it’s more than that. Diligence is hard work applied faithfully over time.
Notice that there are three elements here: First is hard work. Second is being faithful to do that hard work on a consistent basis. No slacking off or taking breaks when you don’t feel like exerting yourself. And third is the element of time — working hard for a day or two is not the same thing as being diligence. Diligence requires faithfully applying yourself to work hard toward a certain goal. Day in and day out. Over an extended period of time.
You can go to the gym and push yourself in a great workout for an hour one day. But if you only do that occasionally, you won’t see many results. On the other hand, if you go to the gym and bust it for an hour a day, every day, for six months, you will see real change in your physical condition. That’s diligence.
So how does diligence provide an escape from poverty? First off, it puts you in a position to earn money. If you’re having trouble finding a job, for example, then you’re in a pretty tough spot. What should you do? Apply yourself diligently to finding work. Don’t give up after a few days if doors don’t open immediately. Even if you’ve been unemployed for months, continue to dedicate yourself to finding a job. Work at it all day, every day, until it happens. That’s diligence.
Don’t go into work just to pass the time — apply yourself diligently to doing whatever you can to make your company prosper. tweet this!Diligence will also help increase the amount of your income. We all face the temptation to give less than our best at work. Employees do the minimum amount of work necessary to keep from getting fired. But if you break that mold and bring the best of yourself everyday, you will earn the attention of your leaders. Don’t go into work just to pass the time — apply yourself diligently to doing whatever you can to make your company prosper. Work hard day in and day out. Over time you’ll get noticed, and your income will grow.
Want to improve your overall employment prospects so you can earn more than minimum wage? In many cases, that takes education and other specialized training. You can do it, but you’ll have to work hard at it. Earning a college degree takes years of work, and if you approach it with laziness, you will likely fail. Apply yourself diligently to your studies, however, and you will succeed. And you’ll become a more desirable employee.
One more thought on diligence and poverty: Although we commonly think of poverty as a result insufficient income, it can also be a result of uncontrolled spending. So just as you apply diligence to your work in making money, you should also diligently work to manage the money you do have.
Many people live in poverty because they don’t know how to handle the money that they do have. To solve this problem, you have to hunker down and work hard at planning and budgeting, making sure that you’re spending your money in wise ways and not wasting it on frivolity. If you’re in debt, apply yourself diligently to paying it off (instead of just paying the monthly minimums). If you need to buy a car, save diligently until you have the cash to pay for it.
It’s easy to talk about these things but much more difficult to put them in to practice. But that’s what diligence is all about. If you want to escape poverty, set your heart to work hard. Then keep doing it, over and over again, until your situation changes.The antidote to poverty is found in your willingness to work hard and keep going.
It won’t happen overnight. But if you’re faithful to work hard, God will be faithful to bring you out of poverty and into financial freedom.
When prices go up and wages don’t, the results are bad for everyone.
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If you judge yourself based on your income, money is stealing your identity. Go back to the word of God to re-learn who you are.
It’s easier than you think to spend your way into a money hole, even if you have a good job.
In most circumstances, we consider a 95 percent success rate good, or even outstanding. But when it comes to the condition of your heart, 95 percent success means five percent failure. And like a cancer, that failure can spread and grow if you don’t confront it quickly.
If you’re wondering what all of this has to do with money, here’s the connection: I feel that most of the time I do a good job of being content with the things God has given me. I have been blessed, and my heart is set on blessing others. But from time to time, I get distracted by what I don’t have. I see other people having things that I want, and it makes me angry. I can go 350 days a year with a great attitude about money. But the struggles that I have on the other 15 reveal the weaknesses in my heart.
Money can make slaves of us in all sorts of ways. It’s not just greed or debt that trap us in financial slavery: Anytime money warps our thoughts, attitudes or relationships, it is taking control of us (even if that control seems subtle and excusable). And this means that, even though I may have a good attitude 95 percent of the time, resigning myself to a poor attitude during the other five percent is opening the door to financial slavery in my life.
Everyone’s financial challenges come in different ways. For me, the struggles come in the form of the Comparison Game — I have a tendency to use money as a scorekeeper in life. If I’m doing well financially, I’m beating all of those schmucks who have less than I do. And all of the people who are doing better than me got there because they cheated, got lucky, or otherwise fell into wealth… or so I tell myself. These ideas are hogwash, of course, but they still crop up sometimes from deep corners of my heart. If I let them go unchecked, they’ll eventually warp my entire identity.
The problem is the worst when I notice other people’s money making me mad. Here are some typical examples of the sorts of relationships and encounters that stick in my craw:
These are just a few of examples of situations that cause me to struggle with financial slavery. It doesn’t come up that often — as I said, maybe 15 times a year. But on the times that it does come up, it has a tendency to ruin my day.
When someone else’s wealth can ruin my day, I’ve become a slave to money… even if it only happens five percent of the time. And slavery of any type isn’t something that I should put up with.
In my more lucid moments, when my heart is more focused on God’s truth than it is my own discontentment, I realize the incredible irony of this whole situation. Every time I’m offended by someone else’s wealth, I look for a reason to blame them for the problem. They are unfairly profiting in spite of their stupidity. They are gold-diggers or trust fund kids who fell backward into wealth. They sold out their dreams to pursue a country-club lifestyle.
But of course, the real problem here is not them. It’s me.
If I’m going to be successful in overcoming my five percent failure rate, I’m going to have to acknowledge that the problem with my attitude about money is me. There will always be people more wealthy than I, but I shouldn’t let them tell me who I am or what I’m worth. Nobody wins the comparison game. Every time I let someone else’s wealth affect my attitude, I succumb a little bit more to slavery.
This post is something of a confession, but it’s also a declaration. I’m not perfect in my financial attitudes. I still struggle to get it right sometimes. But I will not give in to my weaker moments. The struggle must continue. Because as long as a small part of me is a slave, the rest of me will never truly be free.
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Photo by Victor Casale. Used under Creative Commons License.