Did you ever notice that every time you have enough to make ends meet, someone moves the ends? It’s always be on your mind but is rarely spoken. Will I ever have enough money? The answer for Christians should differ from that of the world.
Did you ever notice that every time you have enough to make ends meet, someone moves the ends? Many people wonder, “Will I ever have enough money?” The answer for Christians should differ from that of the world. We’ll talk about that with Ron Blue today.
Ron Blue is a financial advisor, a co-founder of Kingdom Advisors, and the author of Master Your Money: A Step-by-Step Plan for Experiencing Financial Contentment.
The very first chapter of Master Your Money
tackles the question, “Will I ever have enough?”
Blue says after achieving a great deal of success in the corporate financial world, that question and others began to trouble him. He asked, “Will I ever have enough? Or, If I do have enough now, will it be enough when I retire? And, by the way, how much is enough?”
He says everyone, rich and poor, asks these underlying questions more frequently than he or she would like to admit. These questions are constantly in our subconscious, and therefore we all deal with them somehow in our decision-making.
Either we tend to hoard our resources, or we tend to live out the philosophy of "get all the gusto you can—you only go around once:' The Christian, additionally, is confronted with the question, What Is the appropriate Christian lifestyle?
In the world’s most affluent society In all of history, very few individuals ever achieve a position of being able to live off the resources they’ve accumulated. The vast majority are dependent on the government, relatives, or charity, or they must continue to work in order to have enough income to meet their needs.
Yet there are exceptions, and Blue says he has had the privilege of meeting and working with many people who are better equipped to handle their future and the uncertainty it may contain. One of the dramatic exceptions is that of a retired pastor who never earned more than $8,000 in one year. He met this humble man because he wanted to know if he had enough financial resources to live out the rest of his life. At the time of his question, he was eighty years old; he had been retired for twenty years; and his wife had just begun to require full-time nursing care. His question, therefore, was a justifiable one!
As it turned out, this pastor had never borrowed money … ever! He and his wife had tithed, saved and invested regularly, and as a result, they had over $1,660,000 worth of cash and stock holdings. Again, he’d never earned more than $8,000 per year!
But how do the rest of us answer that question, “Will I ever have enough?”
Blue says that’s a question each of us must decide in prayer with God, Who owns everything and gives us everything we have. But practicing four key principles of money management will certainly make it easier to have enough, and we find all of them in the parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30. They summarize what the Bible has to say about managing money. If you haven’t reread those passages lately, please do!
KEY PRINCIPLES:
1. God owns it all. Very few Christians would argue with the principle that God owns it all, but we often fail to realize that every spending decision is a spiritual decision.
2. We’re in a growth process. God uses money to test us. Money and possessions are a very effective tool that God uses to help us grow. We should always ask, “God, what do you want me to learn?” … instead of whining, “God, why are you doing this to me?”
We should remember that not only is God in control but that He’s promised to provide for our needs.
3. The amount isn’t important. In the Parable of the Talents, the master uses the same words with the servant who was given five talents as he used with the servant given just two. You can conclude then, that the amount you have is unimportant, but how you handle what God has given you is very important.
4. Faith requires action. We see how the master dealt with the servant who hid the one talent in the ground. He was thrown into the outer darkness.
Applied to us, we often know what God would have us do with His money, but we’re so bombarded by the things of the world that we become paralyzed and fail to act.
So we must always pray for God’s calling as to how we handle money and then have the courage to follow through.
On this program, Rob also answers listener questions:
Are IRA assets protected against lawsuits?
Are I-bonds a wise investment?
Should you consolidate a first and second mortgage?
When does it make sense to pull money out of a retirement account to cover expenses?
Should you use investment funds to pay off your mortgage?
Remember, you can call in to ask your questions most days at (800) 525-7000 or email them to Questions@MoneyWise.org. Also, visit our website at MoneyWise.org where you can connect with a MoneyWise Coach, join the MoneyWise Community, and even download the free MoneyWise app.
