MoneyWalk 115: A Principle That Prospers You

This program will help you undo financial bondage.

Once, I was asked to give one financial principle that was more important than all others in helping people prosper. I believe many would have expected to hear me say:

*Give all you can because you cannot out give God because He will then give more back to you than you could ever give Him or

*Tithe to the church treasury and financial problems will forever cease or

*Another seemingly brilliant statement.

Frankly, I could not share one biblical principle that’s more important than all others because all biblical principles hold equal importance in helping you prosper. They are all designed to help complete the work God designed you to do. Each of them is founded in God’s desire that you love Him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and thereby love your neighbor as yourself.

Our failure to regularly teach the full array of biblical financial principles that emanate from this love has lead to a drastic downward spiral in giving where far less than 20% of all Christians pay tithes and where total giving to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ and teach His body has dipped to approximately 2% of household income. This has also lead to massive church-hopping because people are too focused on what they think they’re not getting versus understanding that they are planted in local churches in order to serve and help meet the needs of others. Ask not what your church can do for you; ask what you can do for your church.

This is pretty sad commentary when the bible shows that a person who really loves God with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength gives an abundant, proportionate amount of his income to fund ministry work in order that everyone has an opportunity to hear the gospel, accept Jesus Christ as Savior, have needs met, and prosper to carry out his/her mission in this life.

Preachers should teach biblical financial principles to their congregations often, letting them know that the acceptance of poverty is a curse in the same manner as trust in wealth is a curse. Your failure to obey biblical guidance in order to eliminate from your life a poverty mentality or a trust in accumulated wealth mentality will only help decrease tithing, offering, and the spread of the gospel. Also, it will result in you lacking or misappropriating resources God intended you to pull from Heaven to fulfill the work He called you to do. In addition, it will result in you and your family living beneath the privilege He intends for you.

Don’t mistake a poverty mentality with making a small income or not accumulating great assets and don’t mistake a trust in wealth mentality with being rich or wealthy, having a successful business, or accumulating more than a small amount of assets. Rather, understand both of these mindsets to have a foundation in improperly managing the gifts, talents, and abilities God has given you, in violation of biblical instruction and the leading of the Holy Spirit.

Wouldn’t it be great to see 100% of each congregation faithfully tithing and offering each week and people’s lives getting better; spiritually and financially? We have an opportunity to bring this to pass if we love God enough to preach, teach, and example biblical financial principles in our lives no matter our current station. Surely, as others see the fruitfulness of your life, more and more of them will want to hear your testimony. As a result, many will begin to understand Jesus Christ eternally has their best interest at heart and they will seek to intimately know Him.

Please pray for this ministry and email any questions. May God bless you richly as you follow His plan!!!

Deuteronomy 6:4-9, Psalms 1:1-3, Proverbs 3:5-10, Matthew 22:36-40, 2Timothy 3:16-17

Please forward these bondage breaking articles to other people who can use helpful insight!!!

You can find books authored by Randy and Karen Parlor at www.Amazon.com.

MoneyWalk 114: God's Wisdom Confounds The World

This program will help you undo financial bondage.

Many people seek the same thing: to become rich in this life so they can have luxury, happiness, and the praise of men. Some are convinced that having riches and the business savvy it takes to obtain wealth pleases God. To others, it doesn’t matter whether He’s pleased with their pursuits because in their mind He doesn’t exist. Many have become arrogant in their knowledge and abilities and disrespectful to those they believe are not as great as they are.

They will use any means to get rich including deceit, oppression of the poor, and other immoral behavior. When men praise their success and the methods they use to obtain wealth and status they oppress other people even more in order to maintain and increase their position in the eyes of men. Such worship becomes their aphrodisiac and they feel like they must get more of it regardless of the cost. They disregard people, sometimes their own family members, considering everyone to be lazy free-loaders who are not worthy of help when they are beneath their level of income, power, or fame unless they have goals and take action to get to their level.

In case you currently think this way in any area of your life, beware that worldly knowledge puffs your head up when it is not accompanied by godly understanding and wisdom. Such knowledge doesn’t allow you to see that you aren't worthy to be in God's presence regardless of the millions you amass and industries you control. You have no goodness or deed that you can do to make you acceptable to Him.

He clothed Himself in flesh on earth and shed His blood for your redemption despite all your shortcomings. This same truth applies to those people you have been disparaging. He’s appointed you to be a child of God, a son of the Kingdom, and one of His heirs but you must accept this powerful and eternal relationship and position by repenting of your sin and accepting Jesus Christ as your Savior.

God has no problem with you having riches. He wants to show you the way to obtain them and how to use them to honor Him, spread His gospel, help many other people, and store treasures in Heaven for the eternal life He’s able to provide you. Please beware that your continued failure to accept the deep personal relationship He offers will increase your pride, arrogance, and lack of giving to spread the gospel. Such a lifestyle may bring negative consequences upon you in this life. If not here, surely judgment will be decreed against you when you sit at the Great White Throne Judgment, if you do not repent and turn to Christ before you die. It will be a judgment of your own choosing.

The world’s wisdom overlooks this truth, but God’s wisdom confounds the world by truly prospering you after you make His will your priority and use only moral methods to build relationships and wealth that honors God and that He blesses.

Please pray for this ministry and email any questions. May God bless you richly as you follow His plan!!!

Job 28:28, 32:9, Proverbs 3:7, Daniel 12:3, Romans 1:22, 1Cor. 3:18-23, 2 Tim. 3:14-17

Please forward these bondage breaking articles to other people who can use helpful insight!!!

You can find books authored by Randy and Karen Parlor at www.Amazon.com.

MoneyWalk 113: Insulation Against Economic Upheaval

This program will help you undo financial bondage.

Many people get laid off, receive less pay, and have their overall assets reduced during times of stock market correction, recession, and depression. One has only to review the history of the U.S. and world economies to recognize that these times will come. Yet, by failing to save, invest, and live in accordance with biblical principles many people act as if they’re oblivious to the fact that these economic situations will arise at some point.

Unfortunately, most people engage in personal money management practices that will land them in financial turmoil at some point in their lives, especially when several of the major markets are down, such as stock and real estate. Turmoil occurs because they continue to do things the world’s way like taking on ever increasing debt to purchase material things beyond the reach of their current income and assets. Many also fail to honor God by giving him a tithe for the spread of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the work of the ministry. At the same time, others spend all their resources on get- rich-quick business ventures and supposed high-earning investment schemes marketed by people whose promises turn out to be untrustworthy.

They fail to realize that you cannot listen to anyone who tells you a specific investment method or type of business is successful for everyone who uses it. The only time you want to listen and obey such advice is when the bible says that all believers should following specific principles or methods such as diligently performing a god-pleasing type of work, tithing, spending far less than 89% of your gross pay, saving, investing, eliminating current debt, and refusing to take on future debt, etc.

Otherwise, the heavy concentration you make in one investment or industry will usually turn into a financial downfall for you, especially when you do not become an expert in how that market operates in hopes of avoiding downturns or accumulating enough income and assets to weather storms. When you engage in such risky get-rich-quick endeavors you will suffer foreclosure, bankruptcy, unrecoverable losses, and/or great discomfort for a lengthy time in order to get back to the place where God wanted you to be all along.

God has done preventative maintenance by putting investment principles in the bible that help us overcome the severe effects of economic downturn. This doesn’t mean that you’ll never be touched by storms or that you should take no business or investment risks. Every person will face obstacles and catastrophes in life and every investment carries the risk that it may not grow and that the investor might lose principal. However, you always have a better chance of maintaining your lifestyle, giving, saving, investing, and recovering losses when you consistently make two actions part of your financial plan:

1) Diligently work to get out and stay out of debt by regularly paying down and ultimately paying off everything from credit card debt to car loans to home mortgages.

2) Diversify assets by buying seven or eight different types of investments.

These principles help you overcome the downturns that affect every investment market. Historically, down markets do not affect every industry or investment at the same time, so using these two principles allows you to be in a place where you’re not negatively affected or moved by current economic winds. You can spend whatever income you receive to meet your needs without having bill collectors chasing you to pay debts you cannot afford. Also, you have a much greater possibility of annual asset growth when only a few markets are down at the same time because the growth of investments you have in markets that are up have an opportunity to outweigh the losses you will experience in markets that are down.

As you can see, God has provided insulation against economic upheaval, but you must do your part to employ His plan so you are always in a position where you can come out ahead no matter what economic / financial obstacles come your way.

Please pray for this ministry and email any questions. May God bless you richly as you follow His plan!!!

Deuteronomy 28:12-14, Ecclesiastes 11:1-2, Acts 6:3, Romans 13:8

Please forward these bondage breaking articles to other people who can use helpful insight!!!

You can find books authored by Randy and Karen Parlor at www.Amazon.com.

MoneyWalk 112: Building Wealth God’s Way

This program will help you undo financial bondage.

Learn how to present your Christian testimony in everyday conversation with unbelievers so you can tell them about the wonderful life changing experience you've had since accepting Jesus Christ as Savior and LORD. While studying the bible continually, you'll notice that men and women who accepted God’s sovereignty didn't seek wealth; they sought the rich relationship with God produced by honoring Him and utilizing biblical principles while walking out this earthly life. For this commitment, God greatly prospered them throughout their lives to fulfill His calling and the earthly mission He gave them.

You are assured of building godly riches when you submit your desires to God’s will through praise, worship, thanksgiving, and obedience. Let Him direct your life and identify your goals. Work diligently in service to others in your employment, church, and other endeavors. Faithfully honor God by paying a tenth of your gross income each pay period to the church for the up-building of His people that will help spread the gospel throughout the earth. Also, give free-will offerings to fund missions, help the poor, and perform other worthwhile service to God and man.

Make sure you budget spending so you don't spend more than 80% of your net income on pleasures and household needs. Refuse to take on debts to obtain the material things you need and want. Be willing to sacrifice by not worrying about or trying to purchase items you cannot pay for at the current time even though you believe you need or desire them. This displays trust in God and allows Him to provide for you and your family when you cannot. You will find that many things you consider a need are not really a need and that you can wait on desires until you are able to purchase them without the burden of debt and the consequences that follow it.

Save six months of take home pay in vehicles that pay the highest compound interest in the most frequent intervals. After this emergency fund is established, invest at least another 10 percent of your take home pay in seven or eight reliable equity investment vehicles that are easy to understand, contain broad diversification, and historically have netted higher reliable long-term returns (stock mutual funds, REITS, etc.). Also, let a professional help you draft a will and necessary trusts to plan how your accumulated assets will provide for immediate family members and church ministry after you go home to be with the Lord.

God’s people experience death, persecution, ridicule, and much opposition in this life; however these light afflictions cannot be compared with the wealth of the glory of God that will only be revealed once we leave this earthly body. So let’s do all we can while on earth to build wealth using methods that conform to biblical principles and use it to be a blessing to others in accordance with God’s will. Then, we will show His glory and bring as many people as we can under the richness of His eternal protection.

Please pray for this ministry and email any questions. May God bless you richly as you follow His plan!!!

Luke 6:38, 12:15-21, 14:28-30, Romans 13:8, Ephesians 4:28, 2Thessalonians 3:6-12, Hebrews 7:8

Please forward these bondage breaking articles to other people who can use helpful insight!!!

You can find books authored by Randy and Karen Parlor at www.Amazon.com.