Wednesday, December 31, 2008

MoneyWalk 130: Doing It Right

This program will help you undo financial bondage.

You must be wise at managing your money if you want to turn your negative financial condition around. True wisdom comes only from God and the bible tells us how to find it. It contains the only instructions that can truly prosper you in an eternal and earthly fashion.

Commit your ways to Christ and He'll direct you to bible verses that will give you knowledge to make positive financial changes in your life. In addition, He imparts the Holy Spirit to every believer. The Holy Spirit enlightens your heart to want what God wants to come to pass for your life and the lives of others. He also enlightens your mind to understand principles that were previously hidden to human thinking and action. In other words, He imparts wisdom that you couldn’t receive from any other source to enable you to serve others, your family, and yourself in the way that is absolutely best for you.

Knowledge precedes understanding. Understanding allows you to make wise financial decisions, which is doing the right thing. Knowledge is receiving information about something. Understanding is recognizing the meaning of the information in order to use it appropriately. Wisdom is acting on such understanding in a way that is within God's moral boundaries. In an absolute sense, doing whatever the Holy Spirit tells you to do is wisdom because His instruction will always correspond with biblical principles and will never lead you astray of God’s will. Such obedience on your part brings spiritual and financial prosperity.

Normally, knowledge fuels understanding and understanding fuels wisdom and wisdom leads to seeking more knowledge and so on and so on. However, the Holy Spirit can give direct revelation on how you should respond to a situation without you ever having obtained information from which to get an understanding. Again, His guidance will never conflict with biblical principles. So, search the bible to find God’s will and the financial principles you must employ to carry it out. Only then will you alleviate current problems and sidestep future ones. You’ll always do it right when you follow God's instruction because that is wisdom and it brings peace, joy, and riches into your life. Using instructions from other sources that do not conform to biblical principles ultimately brings grief, hardship, and destruction in this life and/or eternity.

Please pray for this ministry and email any questions. May God bless you richly as you follow His plan!!!
Psalms 111:10, Proverbs 15:33, 16:9, Luke 16:11, Ephesians 5:15, 6:14
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Sunday, December 21, 2008

MONEYWALK #129: Escaping Financial Bondage

This program will help you undo financial bondage.

When you're a prisoner of debt and lack, it seems no one cares. However, Jesus cares and provides a way for you to escape the bondage. Starting a relationship with Him begins the process that helps you take the shackles off your feet. He's the only person who can show you how to solve your problems.

You must declare that He's your Savior and LORD and discipline yourself to read the bible daily, pray daily, and attend a bible believing local church where you'll receive godly instruction that can help you prosper in every area of your life. These disciplines help you get to know Him better, teach you His ways, encourage you to follow His ways, connect you with people who have godly wisdom you desperately need, and help you get out of the spiritual and financial trouble that has entrapped you.

Your alternative is to keep doing what you've been doing and continue your downward spiritual and financial spiral. People who rebel at God's word eventually suffer destructive, chaotic, and joyless situations. Such rebellion normally focuses on unbelievers, however there are believers who haven't been diligent in applying the disciplines of regularly reading scripture, praying, fellowshipping with believers, and utilizing biblical money management principles. When their confession of faith in Jesus is maintained they are on their way to heaven, but on earth they are suffering spiritual and financial hardships because they fail to mature in their obedience to scriptural principles.

Certainly, this is heads and shoulders above the unbeliever because the unbeliever will suffer damnation and torment throughout eternity because he/she has chosen not to make the confession of faith in Jesus Christ that would have saved him/her from such never ending pain. Yet, the earthly and eternal inheritance God holds in trust for believers should lead them to renew their commitment to Christ-likeness by repenting of following worldly instruction and examples so they can become as fruitful as possible on earth by investing money and resources in heaven. With such renewed commitment, believers are able to understand biblical instruction, receive guidance from the Holy Spirit, and surround themselves with a group of mature believers who serve as examples and inspiration for living biblically productive.

The great thing about this pattern is that it works for unbelievers as well. As soon as they make the commitment to Jesus Christ, not only do they bypass eternal damnation, they are also able to incorporate true and lasting prosperity into every area of their lives. Their hearts and minds become open to a level of understanding, revelation, and discernment that helps them walk in godly wisdom. Such enlightenment brings devotion to the LORD, His people, and His mission and produces eternally prosperous fruit and byproducts in their lives. This is the way by which one truly escapes financial bondage.

Please pray for this ministry and email any questions. May God bless you richly as you follow His plan!!!
Psalms 1:1-6, 68:6, Proverbs 15:22, Matthew 6:9-12, Hebrews 10:23-25
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Tuesday, December 16, 2008

MoneyWalk 128: Mission, Planning, Vision, & Goals

This program will help you undo financial bondage.

You need a mission in life otherwise you'll be unfulfilled, useless to other people, and a drain on your family, friends, and society. Most of the time, people without a mission tend to display negativity, depression, needy personalities, and slothfulness. Others whose mission has not been given and guided by Almighty God give themselves numerous tasks that God won't recognize when they stand before Him in judgment even if their accomplishments are enormously famous and talked about on earth. They have the wrong mission because they do not first seek God’s glory in what they do and the skill they display and the people they help.

God wants us to understand that the Great Commission is the right mission and in pursuing it we must follow the great commandment as a united body of believers by preaching the gospel to every person using an abundant portion of our voices, lives, money, time, and other resources. You should have a long-range vision and short-term goals you employ in order to fulfill this mission: specifically your part of it. It will take continual planning to reach your goals, achieve your vision, and fulfill your mission. If you don't write your plan out on a medium that you can frequently re-read and periodically adjust (such as a computer), specific components will be lost to your memory overtime and you will fail to do all that you should do in leading other people to Jesus Christ and giving Him glory.

Research has shown that people who keep their vision and goals before them on paper achieve much more than those who plan only in their heads and way more than those who don't plan at all. If you don't currently know what your specific vision and goals should be, start or keep developing a daily praise, worship, and prayer relationship with the Lord, keep serving in your local church, and keep learning and disciplining yourself to manage money properly. In this way, you will please the heart of God by drawing closer to Him, you can support God’s church and build His kingdom in the hearts of men, women, and children by giving tithes and offerings and physically helping other believers minister to the huddled masses.

Satan is continually trying to blind and lead sinners and Christians down into the pit of hell, so he and the fallen angels won’t be so lonely there. However, as you get busy working on the mission identified in the bible through someone else’s vision and goals (your local church pastor), in due time God will show you and other church leaders specifically what He has called you to do.
Habakkuk 2:1-4, Matthew 28:19-20, Acts 19:21-22, Acts 26:12-20

Please email me with any questions. May God bless you richly as you follow His plan!!!
Habakkuk 2:1-4, Matthew 28:19-20, Acts 19:21-22, Acts 26:12-20
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Wednesday, December 10, 2008

MoneyWalk 127: The People Perish

This program will help you undo financial bondage.

Most people fail to rid themselves of the lifestyles and habits that are destructive to them. This rings true for their finances as well as other areas of their lives. We can identify such people in three groups. The first group contains people who go through life unsaved and on their way to hell while at the same time experiencing financial defeat and its pressure and stress except for the few handouts good neighbors give them from time to time that never seem to help them out of poverty. Many people in this group at some point in life usually make a move toward Jesus Christ because their situation dictates that they try something to pull themselves out of financial despair. They must be careful to truly accept Him as Savior and LORD in their hearts instead of simply accepting Him in confession only with an aim to turn their situation around and then walk out on Him after they have received enough material blessing. Otherwise, they will move to the second group.

The second group contains people who are unsaved and monetarily do well or very well on earth. Though they do well financially and may even be super rich, they are in the midst of eternal poverty by failing to accept Jesus Christ as Savior and LORD, because they're eternally doomed no matter how much money, fame, or power they have in this life. In fact, this is the group from which most people never escape from eternal death to eternal life because position of ease and great blessing in this world blinds them to the need of having a personal devotional relationship with Christ. They tend to be self-centered and success oriented at all costs with an attitude that they are self-sufficient and need no one, especially a God they cannot see with their natural eyes. They generally feel that they have made it on their own and that they can always manipulate, oppress, and abuse other people, if necessary to get what they want on this earth. They have great skill and platforms that could be used to spread the gospel and build the kingdom of God in the hearts of men, but for the reasons noted above they consider their highest priority to be living life by their own rules.

The third group contains people who accepted Christ as Savior and are on their way to heaven, yet they are financially defeated and depressed except for the few times when someone brought them a crumb here or a dollar there to momentarily ease the state of poverty they are living in on earth. While I'd rather be in the third group than in the first two (I was once in the first two), I can do much better in this life than just being saved and on my way to heaven while living defeated on earth. In this short existence on earth, I want to help fund the gospel in my community and around the world and serve as an intentional ambassador for Christ as much as possible. God has ordained a level of wealth for every believer and I want to put myself in a position, through proper stewardship of the money and possessions He entrusts to me, to obtain such wealth for the glory of God and benefit of His kingdom. People in this third group must be careful that they don’t give up their confession and heartfelt believe in Christ due to their continual woes from failure to believe, obey, and receive God’s promises.

Due to the earthly and/or eternal calamity awaiting people in the first three groups who are unrepentant of their sin and/or need for Christ’s power in their lives, I have chosen to be part of a fourth group: those who accept Christ and position themselves to receive heavenly treasures for the up building of His kingdom. There is also a danger to people in this group. They must not let the deceitfulness of riches, power, fame, and position captivate them so much that they throw away humility toward God and man and begin to seek wealth at any cost or fail to use it according to God’s will. Otherwise they may wind up like Demas, who followed the Apostle Paul for many years, but then left that great ministry because he loved the things of the world much more. Oh, what great position would he have had in eternity had he not turned his back on the LORD and His people!

In scripture, God laid out principle after principle concerning how you must handle money to be truly blessed. However, you must study His word and then show yourself approved by using biblical principles in order to better yourself and your finances. Otherwise, you will perish! Either on earth or in eternity and dependent upon the grouping you’re in you may suffer in both realms. So quickly move into that fourth group and commit in your heart to stay there and have an ongoing personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

Please email me with any questions. May God bless you richly as you follow His plan!!!
Psalms 2:11-12, Proverbs 29:18, Matthew 8:25, 1Corinthians 8:10-13, 2Peter 3:9
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Wednesday, December 3, 2008

MoneyWalk 126: The Silent Killer

This program will help you undo financial bondage.

Over 50% of marriages are ending in divorce, our children are more bratty, selfish, and problematic than they've ever been, people's indebtedness to business establishments continues to rise at a horrendous rate while the savings rate continues to plunge, more people than ever before are having cars repossessed, homes foreclosed on, and filing for bankruptcy.

Most divorcees say that financial problems caused their marriages to end. Many others say bankruptcies and business failures were the result of not being able to pay the tremendous mortgages they assumed to purchase buildings, equipment, and other desires. The reality is that these things are only symptoms of the underlying problem: failure to use biblical money management principles.

They thought purchasing things beyond their means would ultimately resolve any problems they encountered in their lives. However, debt is nothing but a silent killer that eventually leads the masses into poverty, despair, hopelessness, and life beneath the prosperity and privilege God desires for you. So, their children continue to set their teeth on edge even though they provide them with the finest homes, cars, and clothes that debt can buy.

Now, we shouldn’t focus much on the past failures that are behind us, rather we should look to the One whose blood and principles can change our lives forever starting on earth. Let our past be an indication that I need the One who is wiser than I. While I may be endowed with some great gifts and abilities, I am not Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Omnipresent and thus I need a deep abiding relationship with the one who is all these things.

The silent killer is our lack of knowledge and understanding of biblical principles for living and managing money and failure to obey the commands and principles of scripture. However, Jesus Christ offers you a way to turn this situation around and make your life purposeful and truly worthwhile. He is the only way, the truth, and the life. No man can do anything eternally worthwhile except it come from the empowerment of a relationship with Him. So, freely offer yourself to Him today and never turn back on that commitment. Seek to know Him better throughout your life and know His principles and he is sure to lead you to a non-indebted, fruitful, purposeful life where you are able to complete the work He gave you to do.

Please pray for this ministry and email any questions. May God bless you richly as you follow His plan!!!
Deuteronomy 15:9-11, Proverbs 11:24-25, Matthew 6:19-21, John 4:34, 1Timothy 6:17-21
PLEASE FORWARD THESE BONDAGE BREAKING ARTICLES TO OTHER PEOPLE WHO CAN USE HELPFUL INSIGHT!!!