As Christians, we are called to travel with as little baggage as possible. We have our new live found in Jesus, and we should aim to live simply. Pastor Jonny spoke to us this week about finances.
Day-to-day life often revolves around going to work to earn money, and then spending that money. Life can often have a focus on balancing the books in our households. We should aim for freedom in our finances, because when we reach freedom in our finances, we will find more freedom in other areas of our lives, we’ll have less mental, spiritual and emotional baggage.
Here’s a key thing to remember: wealthy people are not the people who have a lot, wealthy people are people who don’t want a lot.
In our culture today, we see marriages falling apart based upon financial issues. We have an epidemic of absent parents, constantly striving for more money and not present to spend quality time discipling their families.
We shouldn’t be afraid to talk about money, as we talk about our children, futures, hopes and dreams, but never have the often-needed difficult conversations about our finances. Freedom in finances means we can aim for our hopes and dreams without worry, and build a better future for our families with good planning.
5Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,
“Never will I leave you;
never will I forsake you.” a
(Hebrews 13:5)
Looking at this verse, we need to remember that money isn’t what sustains us, but our relationship in God sustains us.
Our financial situations are all different. Some of us are big earners and big spenders, but stats show that higher earners also have more debt! Some of us have little money and struggle to make ends meet. Some of us have very little debt. Some of us are big spenders. Some of us are good budgeters. We’re all different in our attitude to money.
This is because money in itself isn’t the problem. Money is just a tool for buying stuff, in the same way a hammer is a tool for hitting a nail into a wall. The problem with money is our attitude to it, that we can make an idol of it and sacrifice more valuable things in life to pursue more money.
Having lots of money doesn’t guarantee happiness in life. We hear about millionaires committing suicide and billionaires going through divorces. The issue is our relationship with money, our thinking and behaviour patterns. We should be on top of our finances so they aren’t on top of us.
There are 3 key Godly principles for handling money.
Put God First
Jesus is Lord of our lives in all areas, yet we hold back in letting Him be Lord of our finances. He wants 100% of who we are, including 100% of our finances. Our spending patterns should be defined by the Lordship of Christ.
21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
(Matthew 6:21)
As Jesus said, we should be willing to let our “treasure” be under the Lordship of Christ, as it demonstrates where our hearts are. The concept of the tithe is that if we give God 10% of our income to our church, then God gives us 90% back and promises that it’s enough to live on!
It’s a heart thing. All things are God’s, and we are stewards of any property that He has allowed us to possess.
10Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.
(Malachi 3:10)
Take Out The Emotions
As we discussed last week, when we’re high in emotion, we’re low in intelligence.
For example, if we want a new car, we need to know our budget and do our research before heading out to the showroom. Salesmen are trained to play to our emotions, so we need to be on guard, otherwise we may end up several months down the line making very expensive car payments with a tonne of interest that would be better off spent (or saved) elsewhere.
If a neighbour gets flashy new items, we need to be aware of covetousness and jealousy of other people’s stuff, and resist the temptation to buy new stuff ourselves to “keep up with the Joneses". Our neighbour may have received a gift, received inheritance money, or they might be funding their flashy lifestyle with debt. We should avoid trying to conform to the worldly patterns of consumerism and materialism.
Generosity
God’s economy is upside down. Man looks on the outside, but God sees the heart. We should be loving and generous in our possessions to those around us, whether that’s giving things away, blessing people who are struggling with money, donating to charities etc. Eternally, being generous at heart and letting that love of Jesus flow out of us in generosity is much better than trying to show off our material possessions to the world.
When we give even just a little, God can make it go a long way. We see this in the Gospels with the feeding of the 5,000. That’s a picture to us that God can use any gift we give, more efficiently and more effectively than we might think.
If you’re struggling with finances, the church should be your first port of call. Get in touch with us if you’re struggling with financial issues like debt, or if money is causing problems in your relationships. We’d love to help you spiritually and practically.
Remember that your life is too significant, your time is too precious, your calling too great and God too good for you to not be living with financial peace and contentment. Let’s be a people who are known for our generosity, gratitude and sensible handling of our finances.