God vs Visa June 24, 2008
Posted by BDO in Spiritual.Tags: beat, budget, Debt, excuse, expression, God, love, steward, visa, wife
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Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.
The best standard to use when comparing our finances with God’s standards is to use Jesus’ first commandment: To love our God with our whole heart. When we look at our finances through God’s eyes, we will see if there is something or someone that receives our attention more than God.
When I tell my wife that I love her, she should expect that I budget my money in such a way to ensure we have money to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, date nights, and other special occasions. Everyone would agree that using my money to buy her something or do something for her is proof that I love her. Everyone would also agree that if I spent all my money on my hobby, new gadgets, sports-related merchandise, or anything that interests me, then my actions do not match my words.
My wife would have every right to doubt my love when, at the end of the month, instead of celebrating a special occasion, I said, “Honey, we can’t go out tonight because we don’t have enough money.”
Naturally, she would ask, “Why is that? It is [special occasion]. I thought we made enough to do [special occasion].”
My sheepish reply of “Well, I needed [new rims, stereo equipment, golf balls], so we don’t have the money to do that this month. I promise to make it up to you next month” probably won’t cut it. As a good wife, she might respond with an “Okay, Honey, that is alright.”
But trust me that “patience” won’t last long, before long her love cup will be empty, and problems will start rising if I don’t budget my money better to adequately turn words into action.
That was a romanticized example of the same kind of relationship we have in Jesus. When we decide to follow Jesus, we enter into a similar relationship where we are evaluated not only by our words, but by our actions. God calls us to love Him with our whole heart. We should be motivated to budget money so we can show God how much we love Him. Just like we would budget money with our spouses to celebrate occasions, we should budget money to give to His ministries and people.
Unfortunately, in most families, the “I don’t have enough money” excuse is used too often and on too many occasions. We are too strapped by the things we purchased on our Visa cards to be able to give appropriately to God. This does not show God what our mouths profess.
Granted, there is no steadfast rule on how much you can give to the Lord in the Bible. According to Justin Borger of GenerousGiving.org ,
“The law actually called for three different tithes, adding up to 23.3 percent of a family’s income.”
But in the New Testament, there is no limit. So listen to the Lord and follow His leading to see whether you should give 23.3% of your income or 10%.
A good steward who is a true lover of God will recognize the close relationship between his money and his heart. That true lover of God will also know that truly honoring God is to honor Him with his “first fruits,” not the leftovers.
I challenge you today to recognize who has control of your budget. Is it God or Visa?
If you admit that you made wrong choices up until now and Visa has taken over your budget, commit today to stop spending money you don’t have and start beating debt.
If you found that are making the right choices and God has control of your budget, then I challenge you to teach others about your expression of love through your finances.
Discussion question: What forms of expression of love do you give the Lord through your budget?
Check out the poll in the side navigation menu.
“Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of Thine hand to do it.” Proverbs 3:27 KJVPhoto by:Freefoto.com
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A Kid's Guide to Managing Money (Ready-Set-Grow Series)
I agree with lots of this, but I do find it a little hair-raising to have all the budgeting and money information in the lap of only one member of the couple! It opens up great potential for it not to be an equal partnership, and for your wife to be in big trouble if anything happens to you if she doesn’t have an everyday knowledge of how the bills get paid, what they cost, where the rest of the money has been going, what money is already saved up…. I’ve heard so many horror stories of women in that position whose husbands have become incapacitated in some way, or died, or even left them, bringing on (among the other crises involved there) the sudden realization that they don’t know the first thing about how to handle the finances or, often, even where all the account information is kept.
I totally agree with shared understanding of the direction of the finances.
-Eric
You are right Danica and when both spouses share their views on budget, money, finances, whatever they call it, it makes for a better marriage. But one spouse usually takes the rein and makes sure the bills get paid, etc. while the other spouse does what they are good at. Sometimes one spouse is better at the finacial details and sometimes one spouse would just rather know the broad picture and not the nitty gritty details of what is getting paid this week or next. Financial communication can be a great marriage builder just as the opposite (lack of financial communication) can be a marriage destroyer.
I agree with BDO that $$ for special occasions need to be a budgeted or planned item. It’s a matter of us managing our money instead of money managing us. That is the God honoring way.
I’m currently listening to a sermon series online by Andy Stanley called LO$T that talks about God and our money. He makes the point that wherever our money is – so is our heart. So, so true. We go out and spend, spend, spend and at the end of the day tell God “I’m sorry, this is all I have left.” or “I don’t have any left this month but maybe next month…” But when we give to Him first and give to Him joyfully we’re telling Him that He has our heart and our obedience.