In today's financial climate, believers more than ever are faced with difficult choices. Do I buy gas or pay the credit card? Do we eat out or stay in? Can we afford a vacation this year? Can we even afford to tithe? These questions must be answered, and biblically for us to understand how to handle our finances during this prolonged financial slum.
I, as well as a great friend of mine Paul Speight, work at a credit unions. CU's focused on one thing: saving you money. With no greedy stock holders to fund, State Employee's Credit Union actually doubled their assets in 2008! How many financial organizations did that in the worst fiscal year since the depression? With lower rates and higher customer service, CU's are becoming a major player in the financial world.
So with that said, I have asked Paul to elaborate on how we can better manage God's finances.
"Handling our personal finances is a huge responsibility, but rather than
seeing it as a responsibility why not look at it as an opportunity. The Bible speaks
very clearly on how we are to manage our wealth. Tithing is the first and
most important step in reaping more financial blessings. With that being understood, I want to speak on three oppurtunities after tithing us as Christians should be strving for.
> The first opportunity in handling our money is saving. David Bach, author
and financial advisor repeatedly tells his clients to ‘pay yourself first.’ Proverbs 21:5 also tells us that the plans of the diligent lead to advantage. Before spending on anything else we need to contribute to our savings so we can be prepared. There are 3 areas of saving we should be concerned with. We should be saving up an emergency fund, typically 3-6 month’s worth of income (Prv. 6:6-8). Secondly, we should be saving for when
we will no longer be able to work, or want to work (retirement). Finally,
we should save so we have money to give.
> The second opportunity is providing. There are several categories I think fall under providing. We are to provide by paying our bills responsibly (Rom. 13:7, Ps 37:21), providing food, clothing, and shelter for our family
(1 Tim 5:8), and preparing financially for our children’s education (Prv.7:11, 24:5). Finally, we are to provide by having some fun with our blessings! We know that if we give to God He will bless us until there is no need (Mal 3:10). In fact, in that same verse God basically says, “Come on, I’ll prove it to you!” God will always bless us but don’t think just because we give we are immune to challenging times, just ask Job.
> Our third opportunity calls for us to give. We all know Christmas is a time for giving and so are birthdays, anniversaries, fundraisers, graduations, baby showers…can you see where I’m going here? My point is that the bigger your social network the more expensive life is. This should not discourage you from making more friends but it should encourage you to save!
Giving a friend or anyone a gift during a special occasion will bring you so much joy. Giving gifts is great but so is helping people in tough times. My goal and hopefully yours also is to be in a position to allow God to call on me to help others in need. However, in order to perform these two acts of giving we must prepare and save!
So to conclude, if we have taken the opportunity to save, provide, and give, we should also enjoy financial blessings together as a family or individually. Singles, go spend some money on yourself, married couples (w/o kids) go on a date or weekend getaway, and families do something fun
together (date nights are still always acceptable). Enjoy spending, but do it responsibly. And remember, one day we will stand in front of our Savior and be held accountable for all we did in life, not just financially, but in every thought, deed, and action. Above all us let everything we do bring glory to Him!"
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