10 Money Lessons to Teach Your Kids

David Murray:

1. We are all teaching our children how to handle money. The only questions are: (i) are we doing it intentionally or accidentally? and (ii) are we teaching them good lessons or bad lessons? 

2. However bad your financial past, you can start to make it better today, change your family tree, and leave the best possible legacy for your children – a good example of financial stewardship. 

3. Teaching your children financial stewardship begins with teaching them how to work because work builds discipline and self-denial. Giving our children money without expecting them to work breeds an entitlement mentality. Studies show that students who work ten to nineteen hours a week actually have higher GPAs on average than students who don’t hold jobs while in school. 

4. We should teach our children how to divide all income into three main categories: save, spend, give. 

5. At times we should let our kids suffer the consequences of their financial decisions – if our kids don’t learn how to make small inexpensive mistakes when they are kids, they will make huge and expensive mistakes as adults. 

6. Teach our kids the value of the least used word in parenting today “NO!” 

7. The Five Foundations for teenage financial responsibility:

• Save a $500 emergency fund.

• Get out of debt.

• Pay cash for a car.

• Pay cash for college.

• Build wealth and give.

8. You will never get out of debt or build wealth if you have a car payment… Paying cash for a car and buying a used one is the shortest path to building wealth. 

9. If you want to raise money-smart kids, you have to raise kids who are content… A heart filled with gratitude leaves no room for discontentment. 

And the BIGGEST lesson of all in the book: 

10. We must teach our children that they don’t own money—they are simply managers, or stewards of it. Owners have rights; managers have responsibilities. Owners think of themselves; managers can’t. It isn’t their money, so they must think of others. Owners worry over their money; managers don’t need to worry because the money isn’t theirs to begin with. Owners hold with a tight fist; managers hold with an open hand.

How Do We "Count It All As Loss"?

John Piper:

In everyday practical terms, what does it mean to do this? It means at least these four things: 

1. Renouncing all (counting all as loss) means that, if we must choose between Christ and anything else, we will choose Christ. 

That is, even though God does not bring us to the crisis of either-or at every point, nevertheless, we are ready, and have resolved in our hearts that, if the choice must be made, we will chose Christ. 

2. Renouncing all (counting all as loss) means that we will deal with everything in ways that draw us nearer to Christ, so that we gain more of Christ, and enjoy more of him, by the way we relate to everything. 

That is, we will embrace everything pleasant, by being thankful to Christ; and we will endure everything hurtful, by being patient through Christ. 

3. Renouncing all (counting all as loss) means that we will seek to deal with the things of this world in ways that show that they are not our treasure, but rather that Christ is our treasure. 

That is, we will hold things loosely, share things generously, and ascribe value to things in relation to Christ. We will seek to live the paradox of 1 Corinthians 7:30-31, “Let [Christians] buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it.”   

4. Renouncing all (counting all as loss) means that if we lose any or all the things this world can offer, we will not lose our joy, or our treasure, or our life — because Christ is our joy and our treasure and our life. 

That is, in smaller losses we will not grumble (Philippians 2:14), and in greater losses we will grieve, but not as those who have not hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13).

Read the rest.  

For All The Music, History, Literature, and General Studies Majors Out There

As one who has a BA in religion, this comical video rang quite true.

"It is More Blessed to Give Than Receive" - Acts 20:35

Here is the proof for this verse.  Fascinating stuff.

People who ask, “How much do I have to give?” don’t get it.

J.D. Greear:

I am often asked how much Christians should give. Some who ask this are looking for wisdom, but many are looking for an out. They want to know how much is enough to get God off their backs, to fulfill their duty. And that attitude is miles away from the gospel. 

Gospel giving is about love, not law. It’s not about percentages, but about a person. Zacchaeus throws out some numbers, but not because Jesus gives him the benchmark first. He does it out of sheer joy, as a love offering to God. 

A lot of people who ask, “How much do I have to give?” labor under the delusion that God needs their money. In their minds, God is like the government, endlessly low on funds and constantly seeking more funding. But God doesn’t need our cash. 

That’s why 2 Corinthians 9:7 says that God loves a cheerful giver. If God had needs, he wouldn’t care why you gave; he would only care that you gave. I’ve never gotten a letter from the IRS saying, “Yes, you paid the legal amount, but we sense that it wasn’t joyful giving. We’re concerned about your motives.” No, the IRS needs money, so that’s their bottom line. 

But (thankfully) God isn’t like the IRS. God loves cheerful giving because gospel giving is primarily about worship and joy, not meeting needs. I have heard it said that God measures our generosity not by the size of our gifts, but by the size of our sacrifice, because sacrifice expresses the affections of our heart to God. 

And if we find ourselves growing stingy and fearful once again, the answer is not to try harder. The answer is to look back at the cross, where God was lavishly generous with us. Because those people who truly experience the gospel become like the gospel—overflowing with grace.

Read the rest.


Books by J.D. Greear:

• Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart: How to Know for Sure You Are Saved
• Gospel: Recovering the Power that Made Christianity Revolutionary
• Breaking the Islam Code: Understanding the Soul Questions of Every Muslim

"What's Down In The Well Comes Up In The Bucket"

Michael Kelley:

A friend recently told me that what’s down in the well comes up in the bucket. When we find ourselves spouting off in anger or gossip or slander it’s not because we were just caught up in the moment; it’s because that’s what down in our hearts. We are only showing off what’s been down in there the whole time:

“How can you speak good things when you are evil? For the mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart. A good man produces good things from his storeroom of good, and an evil man produces evil things from his storeroom of evil” (Matthew 12:34-35).

Today, if you want to do a little introspection, then don’t start with the heart; it might just be lying to you. Start with the tongue. Continue with the wallet. Then move onto the gospel where we will find the only true power to not change our words or our spending habits, but the heart that is behind them both.

Read the rest.



Books by Michael Kelley

• Transformational Discipleship: How People Really Grow 
• Boring: Finding an Extraordinary God in an Ordinary Life 
• Wednesdays were Pretty Normal: A Boy, Cancer, And God

"Materialism, the worship of the god “Mammon” as the greatest good on earth, may well be the biggest competitor with the God of Jesus Christ for the allegiance of human hearts in our world today."

Materialism, the worship of the god “Mammon” as the greatest good on earth, may well be the biggest competitor with the God of Jesus Christ for the allegiance of human hearts in our world today. It is easy to demonize other religions or aberrant offshoots of Christianity because we do not accept their theological tenets; it is much harder to see the weaknesses of the worldviews in which we ourselves are enmeshed. Like the Israelites of old who believed they could still worship Yahweh under the guise of a golden calf, Christians in more well-to-do nations or parts of the world think they can serve Jesus while still worshiping money and material possessions even more. They quickly deny that their attachment to those possessions comes anywhere close to worship, but when one compares the time and energy expended in working for it, managing it, protecting it, longing for more of it, and deciding how to spend it with the time and energy put into kingdom activity, the denials often ring hollow. 

Unlike those ideologies that find the material world inherently evil, biblical Christianity recognizes the fundamental goodness of property and possessions. God created the entire universe as good. Despite human sin bringing many damaging results to all of God’s creation, a decent standard of living is something almost all people appropriately desire. Being materially poor is not a virtue, nor does it by itself bestow any level of spirituality. Precisely because helping the poor is such a pervasive principle in the Bible, we can recognize that extreme forms of self-denial are not particularly Christian forms of spirituality. God wants his people not to live in poverty, so those who are well above the poverty line must be generous in helping those who have less so that as many people as possible can enjoy his good, created gifts….  

…Because of sin, material possessions do not always function as God intended them to. In many contexts, they may seldom function as he wishes. There is no biblical support, however, for the notion that money, since the fall, is inherently corrupting.  But possessions or the desire for possessions does frequently serve as a seduction to sin. Those who amass great riches are tempted to use them to wield power over others in inappropriate, heavy-handed fashion. They may think that people owe them favors in return for their patronage or benefaction. They readily imagine that money can buy happiness, health, and even salvation — if, indeed, they think they have anything to be saved from. They are naturally tempted to imagine that they don’t need God or even that there is no God. They often live in subcultures that shield them from having to encounter the most desperately needy people of the world, so that they can assuage their consciences that they have helped the poor even when they offer a much smaller percentage of their profits to that end than they might have otherwise. 

The best way, therefore, to maximize the goodness of material possessions and minimize their negative effects is to give a generous, even sacrificial amount of them away.  Philanthropy, in and of itself, saves no one, but it can do a huge amount of good for hurting people. The best forms of philanthropy, however, grow out of a Christian worldview. Sacrificial giving cannot be fixed at a certain percentage of one’s gross or net income or worth. Qualifying levels vary from person to person and from one set of circumstances to another. But they always involve giving up something that a person values considerably. 

God normally does not ask the rich to trade places with the poor, merely to give from their surplus. But they must be ruthlessly honest about just how much is surplus. Savings, investments, insurance, retirement accounts, and leaving money behind for one’s closest
relatives after one dies may also exemplify good stewardship under various conditions. But they cannot automatically be said to be appropriate for everybody. In fact, there is no one-size-fits-all-stewardship; all Christians must regularly reassess their finances and determine what God will be pleased with in their specific contexts. 

- Craig Blomberg, Christians in an Age of Wealth, p. 243

Everybody Worships

Everybody has got to live for something, but Jesus is arguing that, if he is not that thing, it will fail you. 

First, it will enslave you. Whatever that thing is, you will tell yourself that you have to have it or there is no tomorrow. That means that if anything threatens it, you will become inordinately scared; if anyone blocks it, you will become inordinately angry; and if you fail to achieve it, you will never be able to forgive yourself. 

But second, if you do achieve it, it will fail to deliver the fulfillment you expected. 

Let me give you an eloquent contemporary expression of what Jesus is saying. Nobody put this better than the American writer and intellectual David Foster Wallace. He got to the top of his profession. He was an award-winning, best-selling postmodern novelist known around the world for his fierce and boundary-pushing storytelling. He once wrote a sentence that was more than a thousand words long. And, tragically, he committed suicide. But a few years before that, he gave a now-famous commencement speech at Kenyon College. He said to the graduating class, 

Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god . . . to worship . . . is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure, and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before [your loved ones] finally plant you. . . . Worship power, and you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. Look, the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they are evil or sinful; it is that they’re unconscious. They are default settings. 

Wallace was by no means a religious person, but he understood that everyone worships, everyone trusts in something for their salvation, everyone bases their lives on something that requires faith. A couple of years after giving that speech, Wallace killed himself. And this non-religious man’s parting words to us are pretty terrifying: “Something will eat you alive.” Because even though you might never call it worship, you can be absolutely sure you are worshiping and you are seeking. And Jesus says, unless you’re worshiping me, unless I’m the center of your life, unless you’re trying to get your spiritual thirst quenched through me and not through these other things, unless you see that the solution must come inside rather than just pass by outside, then whatever you worship will abandon you in the end.

- Tim Keller, Encounters with Jesus: Unexpected Answers to Life’s Biggest Questions (Dutton; 2013), 28–30

(HT:  Tony Reinke)

The Preachers of LA: How Much Should A Preacher Make?

Interesting post here from Bryan Loritts.  I wish this issue was straightforward and simple.  Unfortunately, it's not.

Kindness

Powerful video.

It's Not About The Money

Michael Kelley:

...let’s just say that you are a Christian who customarily gives to your church the first 10 percent of your paycheck. But then the economy goes south, or you acquire some unexpected medical bills. Or maybe you just take a hard look at the checkbook and realize how much more you could have socked away if you didn’t give that full 10 percent. So you are tempted to cut back. You justify it by saying that it’s not that you won’t ever tithe again— you’re just taking a few months off to get your feet under you. And isn’t it sort of legalistic to have to write this check every month anyway? And doesn’t God care about taking care of our families? That money could certainly be used to help them. Those are some of the things I have told myself, at least. 

But all those excuses focus on a side issue. Tithing isn’t really about the money. Just like most things in the Christian life, tithing has little to do with the actual, physical act and much more to do with the spiritual significance behind that act. Tithing has very little to do with money, and very much to do with faith. When we make the conscious choice to regularly and sacrificially give, we show that we aren’t just giving lip service to God’s power to provide and His goodness in doing so. Our faith is measured by our actions. 

I believe that to continue to tithe—to be generous and giving even when you feel like you can’t afford it—is an act of faith. It is a statement by action that I believe God can be trusted. He told me to do this, and so I will do it because I believe He is wise and loving in what He commands. 

I will tithe also because I believe in God’s power to provide. There’s a lot that I could do with that money; and sometimes I feel like giving it away puts me in a position of need. That’s not a position I’m comfortable with, but that is a position where I must receive from God. Not a bad place to be. 

And I will tithe because I believe that God Himself is better than any of the stuff I could get with that money. It’s an act of faith to choose God over comfort because, well, He’s invisible. So I give away the money that could be used to make me more comfortable because I believe that God is better than any of those things. 

We give because we trust. When we don’t give, it’s because we don’t trust. Our wallets reveal, much more clearly than our words, the depth of our faith. Our faith is shown clearly in our common, ordinary expenditures…

Read the rest by getting the book.  Only $4.99 on Kindle app!

True.

adam4d.com

Taking Joy in the Joy of Others

What happens when you leave a $200 tip?  Watch below.  Giving is way more fun than being selfish.

Dave Ramsey in the Red Chair

Wisdom and Money

Why is using our money for Christ wise? Because the more we use our money for self-importance, the sillier we look. The pretense of it, the love of appearances, the overreaching—we do that because money has an almost mystical power over us. But how many castles in Europe are still lived in by the families that built them? Self-importance is unsustainable. But the more we heap prestige on Jesus by our money, the more weighty and significant and relevant we become. We become serious people. We impact history. That is the irony of wisdom.

- Ray Ortlund, Proverbs: Wisdom that Works, p.68.

Your Heart Will Follow Your Money

Suppose you buy shares of General Motors. What happens? You suddenly develop interest in GM. You check the financial pages. You see a magazine article about GM and read every word, even though a month ago you would have passed right over it. 

Suppose you’re giving to help African children with AIDS. When you see an article on the subject, you’re hooked. If you’re sending money to plant churches in India and an earthquake hits India, you watch the news and fervently pray. 

As surely as the compass needle follows north, your heart will follow your treasure. Money leads; hearts follow. 

I’ve heard people say, “I want more of a heart for missions.” I always respond, “Jesus tells you exactly how to get it. Put your money in missions—and in your church and the poor—and your heart will follow”

- Randy Alcorn, The Treasure Principle, p.44

Should You Talk About Your Giving Habits?

Books by Randy Alcorn:

• Heaven
• If God Is Good: Faith in the Midst of Suffering and Evil
• Money, Possessions, and Eternity
• The Treasure Principle: Unlocking the Secret of Joyful Giving (LifeChange Books)
• Heaven for Kids
• Safely Home

The Connection Between Worry and Giving

One way to test our kingdom allegiances is to look at our budget.  For example, do you tithe?  Do you freely give ten percent of your income to God's work in its many forms?  That was the Old Testament guideline.  And when we get to the New Testament, when the riches of the kingdom are unveiled, Jesus invited people to give God everything:  "Sell your possession and give to the poor.  Provide purses for yourself that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys" (Luke 12:33). 

If you don't tithe, your faith is more than likely small.  You hoard because you don't believe the Father is generous.  You don't share in the king's heart of self-sacrifice.  As a result, worry and fear will be an uneasy undercurrent in your life. 

Tithing, of course, is not the central issue in the kingdom.  The kingdom is first about what God gives, not what we give.  Giving is merely our response to his ongoing generosity.  We already know that his generosity to us is boundless - it is the kingdom itself (Luke 12:32).  But what is this kingdom that he is giving us? 

The answer, like his promises to us, is a list that is endless.  He gives forgiveness, reconciliation, love, power, meaning. purpose, sanctification, glorification, peace, and more.  But all the gifts of the kingdom are gathered together in Jesus the King.

- Ed Welch, Running Scared: Fear, Worry & the God of Rest, p. 121, 122

"Like the frog that boiled to death by degrees..."

Like the frog that boiled to death by degrees, we tend to gradually acclimate to our materialism, becoming desensitized to it, and finally regarding it as the norm rather than an aberration. The hardest part of dealing with out materialism is that it has become so much a part of us.  Like people who have lived in darkness for years, we have been removed from the light so long we do not know how dark it really is.  Many of us have never known what it is not to be materialistic.  It is normal, the only way we know.  This is why we need so desperately to read the Scriptures, to grapple with these issues, bring them to God in prayer, discuss them with our brothers and sisters, and look for and learn from those rare models of nonmaterialistic living in our Christian communities. I’m convinced that if we were to gain God’s perspective, even for a moment, and were to look at the way we go through life accumulating and hoarding and displaying things, we would have the same feelings of horror and pity that any sane person has when he views people in a mental asylum endlessly beating their heads against the wall.

- Randy Alcorn, Money, Possessions, and Eternity, p. 60

C.S. Lewis on Sacrificial Giving

“I do not believe one can settle on how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc., is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charitable expenditure excludes them."

– C.S. Lewis