maximios

I don’t want to be the one to ruin your fantasies, but have you ever considered that your fantasies may be ruining you? Figuring out life and finance is a tough business. Because money is tied to so many things — our work, our families, our homes, our spending, our faith, our identities — our […]

An often-overlooked teaching in the book of Deuteronomy gives us a fascinating peek into God’s plan for taking care  of the poor. When we talk about God’s Master Plan here at God, Money & Me, we’re usually examining things that scripture says about how we should handle our personal finances. But God’s money plan goes […]

Most personal finance websites extol the virtues of thriftiness at length. But what happens when a penny-pinching spirit gets out of control? In more ways that almost any other facet of human life, money has an overwhelming capacity for making slaves of us. Some people are slaves to greed, envy, or poverty. Other times the […]

Via Flickr, by user snowpeak. Used under Creative Commons License. If your parents sent you off to college with a credit card, “just in case of emergencies,” they were likely operating under one of the most prevalent beliefs about debt in our society — that credit provides some kind of safety net, in case “something […]

The structural safety of a building is only as good as the integrity of the foundation that it’s built on. If the foundation is unsafe, the entire building is at risk. This metaphor from architecture has applications in many areas of life — so many that it became one of Jesus’ most famous parables. It […]

Via Flickr by user aaron13251. Used Under Create Commons License. If you’ve been around a church more than once or twice, you’ve probably heard a tired-but-true saying that sounds something like this: “God loves you, and has a wonderful plan for your life.” For most of us, this sounds pretty reasonable. That God loves me […]

How much is is your faith worth to you? Can you put a dollar amount on it? Is there a price high enough that you would be willing to give up your relationship with God for? If you’re like most Christians, you’re saying to yourself, “No way — I would never sell out like that.” […]

Your house can be one of the greatest blessings in your life, or one of your greatest curses. If the place you live controls you and your decisions, you might be a slave to your house. A crucial part of achieving financial freedom is escaping things that are holding you back. And for far too […]

God wants you to enjoy money. The first time I realized that God wants me to enjoy money, I almost couldn’t believe it. Parts of our culture tell us that enjoying money is a sign of spiritual decay. But that simply isn’t true. As I studied what the Bible says about money, I discovered that […]

It’s the one kind of debt that nobody plans for, but that many of us will face at one point or another in life: You walk into the hospital with a sudden medical issue, and walk out with a pile of bills. We live in an era of unprecedented medical knowledge and technology, and today’s […]

How many dollar bills can you stuff down the neck of a beer bottle? If you’re a frequent drinker, your habit is likely costing you a lot of money. If you’re a habitual drinker or a binge drinker, alcohol takes a toll on your body and your wallet. Though it is socially acceptable (and often […]

Why do low-ranked teams sometimes topple top-seeded teams in college basketball tournaments? Why are the smartest people in a high school class not always the valedictorians? Why do “C” students often go on to out-achieve their peers in business or politics? Perhaps it’s because in each of these cases, the less-talented player was pressured to […]

Plan together. Once you have a plan in place, you also need to make sure you’re on the same page about how to execute it. One or the other of you may be better with math or more enthusiastic budgeting. That’s fine. But both spouses need to be involved in making decisions about the budget. […]

Sometimes the most compelling reason to be generous is not that somebody else needs to receive, but that you need to give. You’ve heard it said before that it’s more blessed to give than to receive (a radical idea when Jesus introduced it to the world). Today, we’re going to look at one of the […]