As we explore what God says about finances we often start with asking how God wants us to use our money. This is a bad place to start and will set us up with feelings of guilt and or resentment when it comes to money and God's instructions about it. I want to flip this question on it's head and hopefully help you have a paradigm shift when it comes to your view of God and money.
"It's not my money."
God owns it all (Psalm 50:10-11). Once I grasped the idea that everything in my life is ultimately God's, I no longer look at God as a cosmic owner trying to keep me from enjoying my money. Instead of being resentful of the things God asks of me, I can follow His advice about money with confidence because, after all, it is His money.This concept will only work and make sense if you have a personal relationship with God. Until you have decided to give your entire life over to God, this concept seems completely crazy. Jesus gave up his life and took the punishment for my sin and my response to such grace is to give him the only thing I can offer, my life. That includes my family, work, relationships, recreation, mind, body, soul, and oh yeah, finances.
If you want to experience God in a whole new way, and begin having a healthy view of money, then stop thinking "it's mine" and start thinking "it's God's".
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Nice beginning to your blog Justin. I agree it's God's money. When I start applying this idea does it make sense for me to pick up an object that I'm considering purchasing at a store and ask, "is this something God would want to buy with his money?"
ReplyDeleteThat seems like a reasonable application of the concept, but it would be hard to think in that mind frame on a daily basis. Your thoughts sir?
Well, all the cards were stacked against you when the description of your blog included the words 'finances', 'money' and 'equation', but despite it's trepidations start, you've launched this well! You are one of my favorite kind of people - you SEEM to not say much but when you open your mouth there is a wealth of knowledge just waiting to come out. Of all the people who could be writing a blog on finances, you are well qualified...not because you have an exemplary record that would suggest you somehow manage to skip the mistakes the rest of us make, but because you fix the mistakes you make WELL, you have a teachable spirit, you are tenacious about following God, and you aren't afraid to try anything He says. You might be writing on one of my top two least favorite topics in this blog, but the truth is that I hope you write this for years to come and add a blog on my other least-favorite topic: politics!
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