God’s leading to give to individuals…

Posted on October 9, 2010 by Erik

Saw this awesome video this evening and wanted to share it. The real point is that God may decide to bless you or use you to bless someone else. Don’t be afraid to follow God’s leading to give – even if its not to a ministry but to a brother/sister in Christ. Heather talked about helping others previously in a post about the Fellowship of Believers.

Here is another cool giving to those in the church ministry that was done. Mars Hill church is a famous church in Grand Rapids Michigan and they had a project called the White Bucket Project. In it, they called people to give if they had extra by putting money in the white buckets and if they were in need to take money out. The church didn’t keep this money – it was for those in need that went to the church.

Here is a video on the White Bucket Project.
Here is a cool discussion forum with people talking about some of the things that were done with the white bucket money.

Filed under: Giving | Leave a Comment »

Neither poverty nor riches

Posted on October 7, 2010 by Erik

In the last couple of blogs I hope you have been challenged to genuinely love and pursue God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and are excited about the prospects. We have talked about the need to focus your mind’s eye so that we are not doing right but thinking wrong and can see God’s plan to prosper us. Over a month ago I also talked about having a radical motivation for debt free living – discussing briefly the story of the rich young ruler which appears in Matthew 19, Mark 10, and Luke 18.

One of the amazing things to understand is what God will call you to be content with. In some cases, God will challenge a believer with poverty level circumstances. In other cases God will challenge a believer with wealth. In poverty, I believe He will provide enough food and clothing that a believer will not question their faith, but I don’t think he guarantees that to be more than that. Other believers will be blessed with extreme wealth with a call to be givers and good stewards of that money. But I think poverty and riches will be a struggle for all of us. This is seen in Proverbs:

“Two things I ask of you, O LORD; do not refuse me before I die: Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, ‘Who is the LORD?’ Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God. Proverbs 30:7-9 (NIV)

Here is how I would paraphrase what he says: “Keep the lies away from me that will surely lead me away from you! If you give me too much I will depend on the money and not you. If you give me too little I may steal because I couldn’t handle poverty.”

I am so glad that God inspired that text – because you know we’ve thought similar things at time. I am not suggesting you renounce your income. I am not suggesting you can pray to God and definitely be lifted out of poverty. I am suggesting that if you are at either extreme – know that it is hard to avoid the lies like “I don’t need God’s blessings, I have money to fall back on” or “God has abandoned me.” If you are in one of the extremes (which most in the US are in the wealthy extreme) – you must realize it and avoid the lies!

Let me know some of the lies you deal with. As I struggle with the lies like “I don’t need God, I have my emergency fund” – I found it helps to know that a God inspired author of Proverbs knew it to be a struggle thousands of years before I was born.

Filed under: Bible Verses, Thoughts on finances | Tagged: , , , | 1 Comment »

Doing right but thinking wrong

Posted on October 6, 2010 by Erik

I am not sure there is any story which better exemplifies that God looks at the heart than the story of Balaam in Numbers 22-25, 31. Balaam, who has been called the Old Testament Judas, was a man who was clearly tempted by money even while having a clear connection to God. Outwardly, he was a man who only spoke the words God had given him but inwardly he kept going back to God hoping to get a different answer that would bring him riches. Much later, Peter would say of him:

They have wandered off the right road and followed the way of Balaam son of Beor, who loved to earn money by doing wrong. But Balaam was stopped from his mad course when his donkey rebuked him with a human voice. 2 Peter 2:15-16 (NLT)

Balaam reluctantly blessed Israel despite testing again and again whether that was what God would have him do. He also was the reason that the Israelites turned away from God in Numbers 25 according to Numbers 31:16 and he was killed for this in Numbers 31:8.

In the end, we should look to Balaam as an example. As I wrote yesterday, its important to focus your mind on what is good. We often have the problem of obsessing and thinking about things to an unhealthy extent. This could be money, lust, anger, pride, and other thoughts. We need to concentrate on submitting to God, praying to God to clear these thoughts from our head, and getting out of the Balaam pattern of acting righteous while thinking otherwise.

How does this pertain to giving? It goes back to what I wrote about advertising your giving. As it says in Matthew 6:1 (ESV), “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them.” Doing acts even if for God but not having the right heart and mind’s eye focus will be ultimately ignored by God. If you are giving out of a hope to receive earthly wealth then God may not honor that. However, focus on loving God and he will bless what you give (Mark 10:29-30) a hundred fold.

Filed under: Giving, Thoughts on finances | Tagged: , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Getting out of debt is just the beginning…

Posted on October 6, 2010 by Erik

I love when people come to the realization that God has glorious plans for them. I got a note from Matt Jabs over at Debt Free Adventure about his new vision for ministry which he is calling DFA Missionaries. He has a great vision where getting out of debt is just one step in a larger plan that God has for us. This is right in line with many things I have been writing about in thinking differently about your money and having a radical motivation for debt free living.

Overall we need to know that God has plans to prosper us and if we can focus our mind’s eye on the good things God has done and will do – we will be able to see the larger picture where establishing freedom from the bondage of debt is a speed bump before a super highway of giving and living.

Check out Matt’s video below to learn more about his DFA Missionaries project he is beginning:

Filed under: Links worth sharing, Thoughts on finances | 1 Comment »

Focus your mind’s eye

Posted on October 5, 2010 by Erik

This morning’s passage came out of my bible study this morning where I noticed something new. See, I have moved to doing my bible reading on my Nook rather than via a book or computer (biblestudytools.com) which I had been doing. As I was reading in Matthew 6:19-24, verses 22-23 were formatted oddly and stood out as almost a separate paragraph. Let’s review that…

“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” Matthew 6:22-23 (NIV)

This comes right after Jesus commands us to store up our treasures in heaven for where our treasure is our hearts are also. Looking at verses 22-23, I was taken back at how this verse almost seemed tangential which allowed me to focus on it.

First, what does Jesus mean by eye? As I read in a commentary, “Here, as also in classical Greek, it is used figuratively to denote the simplicity of the mind’s eye, singleness of purpose, looking right at its object, as opposed to having two ends in view.” Several other commentaries seem to agree that its your mind’s eye.

So, Jesus is instructing us to put our treasures in Heaven so our heart will follow. He then instructs us to focus our mind on good. Finally in verse 24, Jesus says that no man can serve two masters and follows that by saying “You cannot serve both God and Money.”

In three ways in that passage, Jesus has told us to focus on what is good. He is saying you must focus our mind on the treasures in heaven because any other focus takes our minds off God and we cannot serve two masters. I read this as “Do not focus on Money, focus on God!” Combine this with the rich young ruler (Mark 10) who focused on prestige and money and was told to leave those things and you see that Jesus is clear – we are either focusing on God or we are not!

We do that by surrendering our lives, time, and finances to be used by God. We have to do that immediately and can’t wait for a milestone. We can’t say we’ll pay off our debt and then trust in God. We can’t say that we’ll save up for retirement and then trust in God. We can’t say that we will find the time for God next year, next month, next week, or even tomorrow. We need to focus our mind’s eye on God now and not when the conditions are perfect.

Let your eyes look straight ahead, fix your gaze directly before you. Make level paths for your feet and take only ways that are firm. Do not swerve to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil. Proverbs 4:25-27 (NIV)

Filed under: Giving, Talents and Gifts, Thoughts on finances, Time, Treasures | Tagged: , , | 2 Comments »

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