We All Have Questions - Faith and Finance: Peace With or Without Prosperity

PART ONE - WE ALL HAVE QUESTIONS TO ASK

Everything I write stems from some major experience in my life that has caused me to dig into God’s Word to find His way of operating.

I have found that there is so much more peace in making decisions when the decisions have been made ahead of time. 

For instance:

·                     Should I get involved with this unsaved guy?  NO

·                     Should I tell this white lie?  NO

·                     Should I listen to this music?  NO

·                     Should I watch this movie?  NO

·                     Should I go to that party?  NO

·                     Should I tell this joke?  NO

·                     Should I ever abort a baby?  NO

All of these situations have clear Biblical passages supporting them.  It is a matter of us submitting to the Bible and TRUSTING GOD that He knows the desires of our heart far better than we do.  Yet, many times out of fear and inexperience we “lean upon our own understanding” and do what MAKES SENSE.

I know many teenagers and young adults choose to answer “YES” to the above questions out of fear or frustration concerning loneliness and emptiness inside, rather than trusting that God has a plan for their life and that HIS WAY brings the most joy.

As teenagers grow into young adults they have different questions to answer.  Rather than socially / morally related questions, they face financial / life direction questions which take more discernment to answer.

·                     Should I get a trade or go to college?

·                     Should I rent or buy?

·                     Should I get a roommate?

·                     Should I stay living at home?

·                     Should I buy the car I really want now, because I don’t know if I will be able to afford it when I am married?

·                     Should I work full time or part time?

·                     Should I start a career without going to college; the old fashioned way?

·                     Should I go to Bible College, State College, or a Community College?

As young adults marry they find the financial decisions they made in their early twenties greatly impact their marriage: TIMES TWO.

Married couples face questions themselves, but they are very similar to the questions of the young adults, with a few added.

·                     Should we get the car repaired or get a new car?

·                     How can we pay for the car repairs?

·                     How should we pay for this house repair?

·                     Can we afford to have a child?

·                     Should we home school or send our child to a Christian school?

·                     Should we get this 0% interest card and then pay this small loan back?

·                     Should we get a home equity line of credit for emergencies?

·                     Should we get a bigger house in which we can raise a family?

·                     Should one of us go back to college?

·                     Should the wife work from home?

Most of our questions relate to finances because “money makes the world go round.”  It’s understandable.

Where we get into trouble is that we try to be “good stewards” and make the most of our opportunities, but often we feel like the double-minded man being tossed to and fro in the wind.  We question our decisions.  We worry if we are doing what God would have us to do.  We wonder how we will ever be able to retire when we barely get by today.  We just can’t afford to do it the way the experts tell us we should.

I want to offer you some Biblical truths that have changed the way in which I view finances.  I am doing this out of a spirit to help people be FREE FROM WORRY AND FIND REST IN YOUR CURRENT FINANCIAL STATE. 

It is a change of mind.  It is not a To-Do list or a scolding if you aren’t doing it a certain way, but a set of core principles from which you operate.  You see when we operate according to God’s predefined rules we eliminate stress because WHEN WE OBEY GOD WE KNOW HE WILL TAKE CARE OF THE REST.

Mat 6:31 - 34  Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?   (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.   But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.   Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

At first I felt guilty about not praying frantically (that’s the key word here) about our finances, but as our family got into a groove of BIBLICAL STEWARDSHIP I found that I smiled when a time of trial came upon us.  It was exciting to wonder how God would get glory out of this one.

QUESTIONING ASSUMED TRUTHS

I asked a history scholar how to know which history books are accurate.  How could I find original sources rather than re-written history?  His answer changed how I look at all reading.  He said, “When you read many stories and novels from a certain time period they will all have a common thread about them.  It is a thread that links them together.  They don’t have to point out this particular thing about the history, THEY ALL SHARE AN ASSUMED TRUTH; IT IS COMMON KNOWLEDGE OF THE AGE.

If you ask those who know me well, my hobbies include: music and reading.  I’m a loser, right?  To make me even more of a nerd, I don’t read fiction; I read “How To” books and biographies.  I read every recommended Christian (and occasionally secular) book I can find on marriage, child rearing, missionary stories and finance. 

As I absorbed the answer of the history scholar, I recognized that the “COMMON THREAD” application was true in all the themes that I had studied.  I could recognize truth in child rearing because ten good authors with good families all shared the same common principles.  The same was true about marriages, and even the guiding faith of missionaries.  You could always recognize what worked because all these unrelated authors applied the Bible in relatively the same way with the same good results.

With that in mind, I believed the financial gurus and all of their common wisdom.  Their philosophies are so well rehearsed that most of know them by heart. 

Well, these are the ASSUMED TRUTHS of finance; much of which the Christian world has adopted in some form or another:

·                     “Money can’t buy happiness, but it buys opportunities.”

·                     “The pay grade of a college graduate is 40% higher.  Therefore, the only smart thing to do is go to college.”

·                     “You are throwing your money away if you rent.  Buying is the way to go.”

·                     “If your employer will match your investment into an IRA make sure you give the full 3%.  It’s 100% return and money in the bank.”

·                     “If you don’t have health / life / home / disability insurance, you are being irresponsible.”

·                     “The wife needs to have a career on which to fall back… just in case.”

·                     “The wife shouldn’t work to pay for the bills, but if she wants to work for “extras” more power to her.”

That same history scholar said that when teaching children we shouldn’t be afraid of letting them read clean, secular books like “Origin” because it teaches them (in a protected environment) to think.  They need to question every secular ideology that someone throws at them and be able to bring it under the subjection of God’s Word.

2Co 10:5  Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

Now, I would not begin to suggest that you throw these philosophies out the window or that they are wrong.  What I am saying is that they are not mandatory.  I would suggest that you scrutinize them to see if they are Biblical, and fit GOD’S PLAN FOR YOUR LIFE.

LINKS FOR - FAITH AND FINANCE:  PEACE WITH OR WITHOUT PROSPERITY

Part One:  We All Have Questions to Ask
Part Two:  Biblical Truths In Finance

• Section One:  Whose Money Is It Anyway

• We Are Only Conduits and Stewards; Not Owners  
• God Is The Provider, Therefore He Makes The Rules
• God Is The Provider, And The Husband Is "The Keeper" (Manager) Of God's Provision 
• A Man Has A Job Because God Made Him To Work 
• If A Husband Dies Or Children Are Left Fatherless, God Is Still The Provider 
• There Is No Example In The Bible That Gives Any Support For A Working Mother Outside The Home.
• God Is The Provider, Not The Government 
• God Does Not Provide Through Credit 
• Standing on The Promises