November 22, 2012 By bnjewell
If you want real financial freedom, this one action may help you get there faster than any other: Give thanks.
This is not self-help hogwash that I’m peddling, and I haven’t scraped together some cheap pablum to publish on Thanksgiving Day. Rather, the significance of this occasion helps to highlight a principle that can fundamentally change your relationship to money.
Financial slavery is a problem that starts in your heart, not your pocketbook. And the key to breaking free from that slavery is to change the attitude of your heart. If you learn to have a thankful heart, nothing can make a slave of you ever again. [Read more…]
November 18, 2012 By bnjewell
No matter how much you have or how much you need, abundance and lack aren’t matters of the pocketbook. They’re matters of the heart.
In today’s world we can count almost anything, and we love to use numbers to keep score of how we’re doing (and how other people are doing compared to us). All too often, money is our primary point system. But while it’s important for us to keep a good accounting of our finances, accounting is only useful for tracking things that can be, well, counted. And the most important things in life are heart conditions and attitudes that can’t be counted at all.
As Christians living in a highly materialistic world, we must constantly be on our guards to ensure that money does not make slaves of us and rob us of God’s destiny for our lives. There are many things that we can do to guard our hearts, but today we’re going to examine one of the most powerful: The secret of being content.
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November 8, 2012 By bnjewell
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.” And indeed, most of us would never consciously decide to abandon our faith for cash. But money is tricky, and the love of money is insidious. If you get wrapped up in the pursuit of wealth, it can steal your faith right out from under your nose, without you ever knowing it.
Jesus told us that we can’t serve both God and money, and we’ve spent a lot of cyberspace on this site talking about the ways that money can make slaves of us. Some of them are obvious. like greed, selfishness, envy and poverty. Others are more subtle, like false identity and sinful motivations. But perhaps the most dangerous of all is the fact that loving money can rob you of your relationship with God. [Read more…]
October 30, 2012 By bnjewell
On those nights when you can’t sleep, what goes through your mind as you stare up at the ceiling? If you lie awake worrying about your finances, money has made a slave of you.
There are plenty things on our minds every day, and some of them keep us awake at night from time to time. We have lots of stress, responsibilities and obligations. We may wonder what the future will look like for our families, or ponder whether we’re doing the things we ought to be doing in life. There’s plenty to plan for, pray about and strategize over. But when we let those healthy activities mutate into worry, it becomes an unhealthy addiction that can make us captive to our own minds.
Unfortunately, it’s all too easy to worry about money, especially in today’s uncertain financial climate. But that’s not what God wants you to spend your energy and resources doing. In fact, worrying about money will only distract you from the important things that He wants to see in your life. [Read more…]
October 21, 2012 By bnjewell
What is your highest purpose in life? And what part does money play in it?
Wealth is a tricky thing: Handle it right, and it can empower you to make a great impact on the world around you. Handle it wrong, however, and it can rob you of your true purpose. When we have financial abundance, we can do a lot of good with a generous heart and wise giving. But as wonderful as those things are, there’s a deceitful side of wealth that can steal your soul and cut you off from your truest inheritance if you’re not careful to stop it.
While money is an important part of life, there’s much more to life than money, and a much higher calling for you than simply to acquire riches. God wants your heart to be fertile and fruitful. To keep it that way, you have to keep the deceitfulness of wealth in check. [Read more…]
October 4, 2012 By bnjewell
What happens when you’re so stingy that you refuse to show kindness to someone who has been kind to you? If you’re like Nabal, it could cost you your life and your wife.
You may not remember Nabal from the Old Testament — few people do — but he’s a perfect biblical example of a money slave. If you take some time to familiarize yourself with his story, you can learn some lessons from his mistake.
Money, wealth and material possessions are tricky — if we’re not careful, things like greed, debt, envy and discontentment can make slaves of us. In this series, we’ve seen how some of those character traits have played out in the lives of biblical figures. Today, we’re going to see how greed ruined the life of Nabal.
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September 25, 2012 By bnjewell
If you’re a Christian with a heart for ministry, it’s important to make sure that you have the right attitudes about money. Because wrong attitudes can stand between you and the power of God in your life.
Although we don’t often think of things this way, it’s all too easy to become slave to money. It’s not just greed or debt that make us money slaves — the enemy can use money to cause things like envy, comparison, discontentment and other bad attitudes. When these attitudes make slaves of us, they often inhibit us from having God’s best for our lives.
In our continuing study of money slaves found in the Bible, we’ve examined people such as Judas, Zacchaeus and Ananias and Saphira. Today we’ll meet a character whose financial attitudes nearly cost him the power of the Holy Spirit — Simon the Sorcerer. [Read more…]
September 16, 2012 By bnjewell
You can lie to other people about your money, and you can even lie to yourself. But whatever you do, don’t try lying to God. You’re not going to get away with it.
It can be difficult to navigate through the intersection of personal finance and Kingdom ministry. In the book of Acts, we meet Ananias and Sapphira, a couple who made the mistake of lying to God about their generosity. If you’re familiar with the story, you know that it cost them dearly.
In this series, we’re examining the accounts of biblical figures whose lives were marked by slavery to money. As Jesus warned, if we don’t master our money, it can make slaves of us. We’ve met several money slaves in the New Testament so far, including the Rich Young Ruler, Zacchaeus and Judas Iscariot. Today, we’re going to see how greed and pride enslaved Ananias and Sapphira in the early days of the church.
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September 6, 2012 By bnjewell
He may be the most notorious money slave in all of history — Judas famously sold Jesus out for 30 pieces of silver. But is there more to this story?
I believe that there is. No, this isn’t some conspiracy theory to argue that the biblical account of Jesus’ betrayal in inaccurate or incomplete. What I’m saying is that for us, as students of the Bible’s teachings on money and stewardship, there’s a lot to be learned from the tragic story of Judas.
We’ve talked a lot about how money can make slaves of us. It happens in ways both obvious and subtle. For some people, a love of money completely warps the way that they view the world. For others, it causes them to abuse people, even the people close to them. Judas fell into that trap, and became one of the most reviled traitors in human history because of it. [Read more…]
August 28, 2012 By bnjewell
Zacchaeus was a wee little man… but he was also a money slave.
This New Testament character may be best known for the children’s song about his small stature, but students of every age can learn a lot from Zacchaeus and his interactions with Jesus. Zacchaeus may be one of the Bible’s most clear examples of a money slave who turns over a new leaf, giving us a case study in how money can enslave us and how we go about getting out of it.
Let’s dive right in to Luke 19:1-10, where we see the story of Zacchaeus: [Read more…]