MoneyWalk 36: The Deceitfulness of Riches

This program will help you undo financial bondage.

It is great to have material things that make your life more comfortable. Most everyone wants a nice house, a classy automobile, and sharp clothes. As a matter of fact, most people have dreamed of being multi-millionaires and searched out methods that could be used to obtain such wealth.

Money is not evil even though some people have sought and used it to fund immoral lifestyles and endeavors. Just as many people have used it to fund endeavors that truly help people and make this world a better place to live. Money is simply a magnifying glass because more of it causes you to live on a larger scale where more people can better see your character through the way you spend it, save it, and give it away.

In the hands of truly godly people, it magnifies the fact that they are continually seeking to evangelize and disciple many people to lead them to Christ. In the hands of ungodly people, it magnifies the fact that they encourage, support, and engage ungodly activities that negatively affect the lives of many others.

Most people in the United States are rich in comparison to most people that live in other parts of the world. That is why it is best for everyone to understand that deceitfulness of riches does not affect only those you believe have the big bucks. It is at play in your life when you do not pursue God directed endeavors and use money in ways that glorify Him and lead people to Jesus Christ.

Please pray for this ministry and email any questions. May God bless you richly as you follow His plan!!!
Ecclesiastes 10:19, Luke 12:13-21, I Timothy 6:6-12, Revelation 3:17-18
Please forward these bondage breaking articles to other people who can use helpful insight!!!

MoneyWalk 35: Diversify Your Money, Part 6

This program will help you undo financial bondage.

In many instances, mutual funds are best for beginning investors for meeting the stock and bond allocations of your investment plan rather than trying to choose individual stocks and bonds. They offer automatic diversification within the fund due to the large number of investments that the fund purchases.

The historical track record of each fund compared against funds with similar investments will help you determine which funds to choose. Invest in funds that historically meet or exceed the industry earnings average. Mutual funds come as stock funds, bond funds, low risk investment funds, and hybrids containing a percentage of all three types of investment vehicles as well as other types of investment holdings such as real estate.

Choosing a no-load fund (one without a sales fee) is generally a better choice than choosing one with a sales fee up-front or at the time you cash out. Choose funds that charge accountholders less than 1% in total expenses annually. Finally, browse financial magazines and articles periodically to learn the current market jargon used by financial advisors to become familiar with the different types of investments, so you can make good investments in the right vehicles.

Please pray for this ministry and email any questions. May God bless you richly as you follow His plan!!!
Proverbs 11:14, Ecclesiastes 11:2, Luke 19:13, Acts 6:2-3
Please forward these bondage breaking articles to other people who can use helpful insight!!!

MoneyWalk 34: Diversify Your Money, Part 5

This program will help you undo financial bondage.

Jesus is returning soon and I badly want Him to! Yet, the bible says that to the LORD a day is as 1,000 years and 1,000 years is as a day. No one knows exactly when Jesus will return, yet scripture tells us He'll judge our management of the money He gave us. Therefore, live as though He'll return at any moment to take account of your stewardship.

He is pleased when you invest to increase your income because this allows you to support the spread of the gospel to a greater degree. Investing in stock mutual funds is a great way to increase income because the stock market has earned far more than the bond market over every 20-year investment horizon. This information should help you get over the queasy feeling you get from day-to-day stock market swings and cause you to invest in these vehicles for the long-term returns they produce.

Then, use investment growth to help the church witness to and disciple people to influence them to accept Christ as Savior and live according to His standards. Following this spiritual and biblical money management roadmap and the purpose for which He made you will bring eternal blessing upon you and other people in your sphere of influence.

Please pray for this ministry and email any questions. May God bless you richly as you follow His plan!!!
Proverbs 11:14, Ecclesiastes 11:2, Matthew 25:14-15, Luke 19:13, Acts 6:2-3
Please forward these bondage breaking articles to other people who can use helpful insight!!!

MoneyWalk 33: Diversify Your Money, Part 4

This program will help you undo financial bondage.

Mutual funds provide broad diversification among stocks and/or bonds. Some have initial investment requirements of a few thousand dollars. However, some allow investors to bypass such requirements when they authorize monthly electronic fund transfers of as little as $50 from a bank account.

If you can’t or don't wish to use this option, you should quickly save the required amount to invest in a mutual fund with a good reputation, good historical returns, and low expense ratio. Checking these items is less difficult for mutual funds than for individual stocks, bonds, and other investments. Your state securities regulator can let you know if a fund is reputable and the fund’s prospectus will display one-year, five-year, ten-year, and lifetime average annual returns and the expense ratio.

Large, medium, and small cap index funds are great choices when you aren’t sure how to identify acceptable returns or select funds based on the credentials of the portfolio manager. Index funds will provide you with a long-term average annual return that is commensurate with overall stock market returns for these categories of businesses.

As you learn more about investing, in an attempt to obtain higher returns, you could choose to invest in funds whose portfolio of stocks and/or bonds is based on a non-index fund objective and manager’s stock selection preferences.

Please pray for this ministry and email any questions. May God bless you richly as you follow His plan!!!
Proverbs 11:14, Ecclesiastes 11:2, Luke 19:13, Acts 6:2-3
Please forward these bondage breaking articles to other people who can use helpful insight!!!

MoneyWalk 32: Diversify Your Money, Part 3

This program will help you undo financial bondage.

The benefit to using federally regulated 401k, 403b, and 457 investment plans offered by your employer is that a portion of your earned income can be placed in these plans on a tax deferred basis. You pay no income taxes on this money until you withdraw money from the account. Federal regulations allow employers to let you to invest about $14,000 annually through each plan.

These accounts generally include an array of choices such as fixed interest vehicles and stock and bond investments that automatically diversify your investment holdings. Some employers provide a matching percentage. This is free money that you won’t get until you invest through these plans.

It’s costly to withdraw money from the plan permanently until you're age 59 and a half. This keeps you from squandering all your money in your peak earning years so you have a chance at building wealth you’ll need to maintain comfort in later years. If taken before then, except through a loan from the plan administrator that you pay back on schedule, you must pay income taxes on the money and a 10% penalty to the IRS. In addition, you’ll pay the loan in after tax dollars that will be taxed again when you withdraw it in later years. If money is taken due to a qualified hardship or on an equal annual payout basis over your projected life expectancy, no penalty is due.

Please pray for this ministry and email any questions. May God bless you richly as you follow His plan!!!
Proverbs 11:14, Ecclesiastes 11:2, Joshua 24:13, Luke 19:13, Acts 6:2-3
Please forward these bondage breaking articles to other people who can use helpful insight!!!

MoneyWalk 31: Diversify Your Money, Part 2

This program will help you undo financial bondage.

The bible contains a principle for spreading your risk. Proverbs 11:14 says there's safety in the multitude of counselors. Ecclesiastes 11:2 says give a portion to seven or eight because you don't know what the future may bring. Matthew 25:15 shows the Master giving different amounts of money for investment to three different servants according to their different abilities. Luke 19:13 shows Him giving the same amount to ten different servants. Also, Acts 6:2-3 shows the apostles ordaining seven stewards to oversee the money, resources, and organization that would daily support the widows, orphans, and needy within the Christian community.

I believe these scriptures are trying to let us know that the Holy Spirit encourages, motivates, and guides each person to diversity his/her talent, mind, time, and money in order to get the most out of them and to help protect against inevitable emergencies and catastrophes that will take place during his/her life. Jesus diversified by choosing twelve very different men with different traits and talents who would work together to share Jesus with the world. Except for one, who chose to follow the tempting of satan to become the inevitable catastrophe / emergency that tried to derail the investment God made in the salvation of human souls, the remainder went on to become apostles investing gospel seeds in every region of the world they knew about. The plan was not derailed and all we need do is look at the return that continues to be harvested. It started with Jesus investment in twelve different men and now almost half the people on earth name Jesus Christ as their Savior.

This principle flows into the stewardship arena of your life leading you to invest with different financial institutions, brokerage houses, financial counselors, etc. Seven represents completion and is a good number of different types of investment vehicles/accounts to aim for. You will likely start investing with one but hopefully in a vehicle that holds more than one type of investment (a mutual fund, etc.). However, you will shortly invest extra money with another brokerage house as you continue to correctly manage your income, plan your spending, eliminate debt, save, and realize additional disposable.

This minimum level of diversification will give you peace because it greatly enhances the ability of your money to increase with the markets over the long haul and greatly reduces the risk that you might lose a large portion of your investment to unscrupulous counselors or short-term market declines.

Please pray for this ministry and email any questions. May God bless you richly as you follow His plan!!!
Proverbs 11:14, Ecclesiastes 11:2, Matthew 25:15, Luke 19:13, Acts 6:2-3
Please forward these bondage breaking articles to other people who can use helpful insight!!!

MoneyWalk 30: Diversify Your Money, Part 1

This program will help you undo financial bondage.

Are you familiar with the term, "don't put all of your eggs in one basket?" This advice was given so that a majority of eggs would survive and be useable in the future in the event of an accident. If you place eggs in several different baskets, you are less likely to drop all of the baskets. However, if you place all the eggs in one basket you chance that many if not all of the eggs will be broken if you drop the basket.

This concept makes the diversification principle in scripture a most worthwhile principle to include in your wealth building plan. The bible identifies the most important features as giving a portion to seven or eight and using a multitude of counselors to help you manage your life and resources. Yet, many people foolishly put all their savings and investments in one vehicle in one person’s or institution’s control instead of spreading the risk. They risk the loss of their entire life savings if that one vehicle goes bankrupt or they lose a lot of purchasing power if the value of that one investment vehicle drops substantially.

By diversifying your investments among a variety of counselors (advisors and saving/investment accounts), you drastically reduce the chance that you will lose your entire savings or much purchasing power. So, for future financial protection, invest your money with at least several reputable counselors and accounts. The accounts can hold investments ranging from stocks to bonds to fixed income government guaranteed investments. Some risk of loss should be considered an acceptable risk, especially if you are young and starting without a multi-million dollar inheritance.

You can further minimize your risk by:

Saving for short-term and emergency needs.

Investing for the long-haul (10+ years).

Thoroughly researching and intricately learning the vehicles you choose to invest in.

Choosing investment vehicles with positive long-term historical track records.

While diversification has not stop investment markets from going up and down and negatively affecting your investments in some short-term periods, it limits the size of such swings on your assets so they won’t be anywhere near those for people who had all of their money in the most risky investments. It also allows you to obtain greater overall long-term return than those who put all their money in risk less accounts. In addition, it definitely stops the ability of one person to Madoff with all your money.

Please pray for this ministry and email any questions. May God bless you richly as you follow His plan!!!
Proverbs 11:14, Ecclesiastes 11:2, Luke 19:13, Acts 6:2-3
Please forward these bondage breaking articles to other people who can use helpful insight!!!

MoneyWalk 29: Promotions come from the LORD

This program will help you undo financial bondage.

Excellent, faithful work (a job well done) should be appreciated via promotions for you (i.e., generous raises, higher level positions, accolades, awards, etc.). However, your employer and other people will fail to recognize your worth at different times during your life. Thus, you may find that you do not receive a raise, promotion, or even an atta boy when you feel you deserve it. The fact that you didn’t receive some type of promotion is an opportunity for you to display great humility, patience, and love toward your perceived oppressors. This will only happen if you believe that God is the author and finisher of your life and faith and that He will open doors of promotion that are specifically for you when you’re ready to handle the new level of responsibility.

In the meantime, in between time, and when you get the promotion, use biblical financial principles such as working hard, respecting the authorities that supervise you, and completing assignments well and on time in order to help others see it is in everyone’s best interest to make other opportunities and responsibilities available to you. This attitude and course of action helps you build treasures on earth and in heaven in a manner that help you obtain access to the treasury in Heaven when God knows you need money and resources to complete steps toward your destiny.

Almighty God is totally reliable and has the master plan for your life. When you use His plan it additionally generates more peace, joy, and right-standing from which to receive even greater blessing. You must recognize this building block and order your life in such a way that you utilize it to move you ever forward. In the financial arena, biblical money management principles are what make up His plan.

Sometimes, people have been promoted but fail to recognize their promotion because it didn’t seem to show up in the form of more money or a more prestigious title. However, God is also able to promote you by causing people to give you things free that you otherwise would have to pay for. He also can cause events to take place that can reduce your expenses. These scenarios give you more disposable income to give for ministry and care for your family. Everyone committed to working as unto the LORD throughout life will see numerous promotions over time. So, don’t let satan blind you to the reality of your promotions and don’t be envious of promotions that others receive. Keep working effectively and God is sure to order your promotions from His throne when the time is right.

Please pray for this ministry and email any questions. May God bless you richly as you follow His plan!!!
Psalms 75:6-10, Proverbs 3:31-35, Daniel 4:28-35, 1Peter 5:6-7
Please forward these bondage breaking articles to other people who can use helpful insight!!!