Teach those who are rich in this world not to be proud and not to trust in their money, which is so unreliable. Their trust should be in God, who richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment. Tell them to use their money to do good. They should be rich in good works and generous to those in need, always being ready to share with others. By doing this they will be storing up their treasure as a good foundation for the future so that they may experience true life. 1 Tim. 6:17-19
This money talk has me convinced of one thing. Most of us aren’t living lives that bear fruits of our complete trust in God. Instead our lives exemplify our commitment to doing it our own way. We tend to trust in the unreliable riches of this world. Those things only provide a moment of pleasure instead of a covering of peace that a life of sacrifice to God brings.
How do you know if you are living enslaved to your debt? Here’s a little test to see if you are living in financial bondage. In the past year have you:
- Paid overdraft fees
- Only made the minimum payment for your credit card
- Relied on credit cards not cash
- Utilized check cashing services
- Maintained no emergency savings
- Had to choose which bill you would pay
- Asked for a bill extension
- Had creditors call you
- Worried about what you didn’t have
If you have done any one of those things multiple times, that’s not a good sign. So, now what?
The first thing is realizing that more money won’t fix our money problems. More money won’t fix our life problems. And more stuff won’t fix anything.
I also don’t think financial freedom will come with the right budget plan or simply cutting up a few credit cards. I think what it takes is a complete flip in how we view material wealth and possessions. The reality is our bank account, our spending and our striving will never do what only the Almighty can.
That’s why the Apostle Paul told Timothy in that verse up there to make sure he included this timeless message in his preaching. And what I get from 1 Tim. 6:17-19 is that it is OK to be rich. It is OK to have stuff. But we shouldn’t work FOR the stuff. We should be working for God. We should let our stuff work for God. Our possessions should only be tools of our ministry not trophies to our accomplishments or band-aids for our wounds.
We’ve gotta have a total transformation, a total shift in the way we think about money, work, and material things. The transformation looks something like this:
Our family moved to a new city with specific plans to help with a church plant. We had big ideas as to how we could both contribute to helping the Lord’s church grow. It didn’t take long though for us to get distracted by our financial situation. We fell a little bit behind and instead of trusting in the Lord to provide for our needs, we began to strive at providing for ourselves. Before we knew it, my husband had 3 jobs in a city over an hour away and all of his time was spent away from the church and his family. I had allowed myself to become burdened by fear and “what ifs” and became spiritually distracted. The center of our lives was focused on keeping our heads above water – not living the abundant, spiritual life that God wanted for us. And despite our attempts to do so, we continued to stay one step behind all of the time.
Then came our breaking point. We realized we could not continue on the same path that we were on. For the sake of my husband’s health, our family, and our spiritual goals we knew that something had to change. We began to earnestly pray for God’s guidance and over and over again we heard, “Seek me first and THEN all of these things shall be added unto you.” We made the decision to refocus solely on God and let the cards fall where they may. My husband quit his secular jobs and pursued spiritual work – which God provided in an amazing way. He began to receive adequate financial support for the work that he was doing and we would repeatedly receive surprise gifts from strangers at times when we began to fall behind again or had a need.
To this day we are still not rich people. We still have financial struggles at times but by and large, we are thriving. And now, after having experienced God in action, we know that God is faithful to always keep his promise to care for our needs – as long as we are faithful to put him FIRST in everything.
Today my prayer is that we step back and put money it its place… then put God in his.
You can read the first of the series Debt Free Living is… Easy?
Leave a Reply