MoneyWalk 327: The Annual Financial Sermon Series That Helps Destroy The Curse

This program will help you undo financial bondage.

There are so many Christians and people in this world suffering financially, even though the world has promised us that those who obtain higher educations will make higher incomes and be well taken care of in life. While data shows much higher incomes for those with education beyond high school, it is the lack of good stewardship in individual lives that is bringing people into debt and lifestyle bondage and the accompanying pressures and stresses, regardless of diplomas and degrees they hold.

Often we are told the solution for getting out of financial problems is greater faith displayed by greater levels of giving and more spontaneous giving when you hear the call for various types of donations by influential people with a platform. Give your way out of your problems because after all you cannot out give God. While the bible attests to the fact that people curse themselves by failing to honor God in tithing and free-will giving, it does not divorce giving from other aspects of good stewardship that have to do with being obedient to Him including:

• Continually working toward more gainful employment from which you can fulfill God’s purpose for your life and appropriately care for yourself and family.

• Intricately knowing your income and expenses so you can employ financial management that ensures it lasts throughout future generations.

• Having a lifestyle that is well within your current means to ensure that reasonable savings are left over for emergencies, eliminating debts, investments, and greater future giving.

• Making sure you never let the purchase of things desired put you in a position where you cannot in the present or future provide for the needs of your household.

• Refusing to co-sign.

• Being wise in planning projects (home purchases, car buying, diplomas and degrees, etc.) by ensuring you have enough to complete them without being in debt bondage.

• Becoming reasonably diversified in your investments as you accumulate more into the future.

If the limited financial message being given is all that is need then all we would need do is give each of our whole paychecks to our local Church each time we receive one and then wait for a little while to see our mortgages, car notes, school bills, and other expenses paid off by God or other people as soon as they are due. Of course, no one follows this model. Biblical instructions let us know there are other reasonable steps (those mentioned above) we must be aware of and employ in order to find ourselves on the positive side of the financial arena. People will not continually pay your monthly bills while you go making irresponsible financial decisions, no matter how much you believe you give.

Faith through grace instructs our inner man that this is a pattern that pleases God and helps increase our long-term fruitfulness in carrying out our part of the Great Commission. When you have confession of faith in and allegiance to Jesus Christ you are saved by grace and will reach Heaven when you die, yet failure to be spiritually and naturally moved to follow biblically-based good stewardship practices very often leads people, even Christians, to the portion of the financial arena that is Hell on earth.

You choose this day and going forward life and blessing or death and curses and remember by His grace you are chosen in Christ Jesus to do good works. Now this is a message that needs to be preached during Sunday morning services at least once per year for several weeks including practical steps and tools to employ good stewardship so we can get out of the malaise of financial bondage we continually find ourselves in which hampers many individuals and the Church.

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

Proverbs 21:20, 22:7, 27:23-27, Luke 12:42-46, 14:28-30, 16:1-15

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

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

You can find many other MoneyWalk articles on Facebook by looking at the NOTES created by Randy Parlor at https://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=100000444069041&sk=notes.

You can connect with Randy Parlor on Twitter and Linkedin

You can also view and/or listen to MoneyWalk articles at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXnztOIesOKIrSd_H6c-8mQ

MoneyWalk 326: No Finance, No Romance

This program will help you undo financial bondage.

Over fifty percent of marriages end in divorce and over fifty percent of them are due to financial difficulties and differences in opinion on finances. During the past few decades many marriage of twenty to thirty years have ended in divorce. Spouses are hurting one another and we are creating selfish, bratty children. Often this is unintentional, yet due to our failure to be good examples to both by properly managing our desires and money.

If this isn’t bad enough, the problems get worse during and after divorce proceedings due to costly property fights, legal proceedings that can last many years, and provisions for second and third families. It can be said that the breakup of the biblically based arrangement and unity of families, that is necessary for instructing everyone in godliness in every arena of life, is a leading cause of the continual record level rise in personal bankruptcies, home foreclosures, vehicle repossessions, and local / state / national debt.

Borrowing to buy depreciating assets at ever increasing prices usually destroy a marriage because it beats the spouses down via stress, financial pressure, poverty, hopelessness, and life beneath the abundance God planned for them. He gave you free will to choose between right and wrong and established the blessings and curses that accompany these choices. You will not escape the consequences of wrong choices until you have a change of heart that leads to seeking His will and obeying biblical principles in order to make the right choices.

God’s plan for correcting your attitude and actions to solidify the bond of unity is for you to live by His principles. You will do this when you love His will more than your own. Knowledge and understanding of His will should cause you to draft a 6-month to 1-year budget to control spending, give abundantly to Church ministry, eliminate debt, save, and invest while you regularly attend church, pray, and study the bible in order to build up God’s kingdom and your family for the betterment of everyone around you.

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

Genesis 2:24, Malachi 2:13-16, Matthew 19:3-6, Ephesians 5:28-33

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

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

You can find many other MoneyWalk articles on Facebook by looking at the NOTES created by Randy Parlor at https://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=100000444069041&sk=notes.

You can connect with Randy Parlor on Twitter and Linkedin

You can also view and/or listen to MoneyWalk articles at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXnztOIesOKIrSd_H6c-8mQ

MoneyWalk 325: Change Your Habit And Prosper

This program will help you undo financial bondage.

Most people go through life continually getting loans to obtain material things, at higher amounts, and sometimes at higher interest rates. It’s the example many have seen from their parents and other people and do not think it will entangle them because the getting seems so good. However, the downside is very real and should be exposed for the hurt, shame, and poor financial condition it brings upon those who think this route leads to a better life. It produces continual record breaking vehicle repossessions, house foreclosures, and personal and corporate bankruptcies instead of the fruitfulness and prosperity the LORD desires for our lives.

Many are overriding the lesson that debt, beyond the assets one has to immediately pay it off, is a finance killer ruining their ability to walk in joy, peace, contentment, and self-control and often stopping them from pursuing endeavors more aligned with their God-given gifting, skill, and ability and the fulfillment He wants for them as they pursue the work and service He desires for their lives. In many cases, His route may be more lucrative for them on earth but if not it would certainly be more pleasing, purpose-filled, and fulfilling.

Even though real estate is one of the few assets that very rarely depreciate in value, it will still be lost to foreclosure when life events occur that disable your ability to make large mortgage payments for several months. The debt problem is worsened by the fact that most people have three credit cards, six store cards, and two car loans in addition to a mortgage that is more than three times their annual income. In addition, the revolving balance on credit cards has increased fourfold during the past two decades, student loans are averaging $35,000, and vehicles are being traded in every 2 to 3 years for loans on more expensive cars even though incomes have not increased twofold.

They have not considered the spiritual implication of believing that continuous and ever-increasing debt is profitable such as:

• Bad personal financial habits will be used in their business or self-employment and put these endeavors in jeopardy.

• A reduction in their ability to give abundantly to worthwhile church ministry.

• The great likelihood they will put their families in a very poor financial situation that will bring great stress, pressure, and anxiety into their life, especially if their income goes south during an economic downturn.

Prosperity will rise in your life and bring about more abundant giving and care for your family and God’s Church when you stay away from more debt and budget and use self-control to eliminate current debt on all non-appreciating assets and engage a mortgage of no more than fifteen years with a low fixed interest rate for a home price where the monthly principle, interest, property tax, and insurance payment is no greater than 25% of your monthly take home pay (after tax deductions and other bills you owe) and you make a 20% down payment. The change of habit moving you from debtor to debt-free will shortly allow you to save and invest greater amounts of income over the long haul in vehicles that can build wealth to a greater degree.

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

Deuteronomy 28:12-15, 43-45, Psalms 37:21-22, Proverbs 22:6-7, Romans 13:8

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

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

You can find many other MoneyWalk articles on Facebook by looking at the NOTES created by Randy Parlor at https://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=100000444069041&sk=notes.

You can connect with Randy Parlor on Twitter and Linkedin

You can also view and/or listen to MoneyWalk articles at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXnztOIesOKIrSd_H6c-8mQ

MoneyWalk 324: Plan In Order To Succeed

This program will help you undo financial bondage.

Many hardships come with a lifestyle of debt. God gave us the means to avoid them and to continually move forward into a place of abundance. It starts with knowing the state of your flocks and herds (your skills, abilities, giftings, assets, income, expenses, and liabilities. You must employ them in a way that glorifies the LORD, strengthens you and other people, and builds wealth for His kingdom and family purposes.

To move into good financial health you must establish a plan to eliminate the latter two (expenses and liabilities) within the next few years. Write your average monthly income, who you owe (each creditor), how much you owe them (each separate loan amount), the annual interest rate you are paying each creditor, and when each payment is due each month. Start the list showing the creditor to whom you owe the smallest balance, then the next smallest up to the largest. This information will help you draft a projection of monthly income minus expenses (a budget) that shows whether you are operating at a deficit or surplus each month and throughout the year.

The budget lets you know whether you have extra money available to quickly pay off your debts, whether you need to seek additional or higher paying work in order to quickly pay off your debts, how much you need to cut expenses in order to help you put extra money toward quickly paying off your debts, whether you can afford to spend on desires at the present time thus helping control your urge to spend money you do not have available.

It also helps you determine what you need to do to increase income and accumulate wealth you need to be able to give abundantly to Kingdom work and cover future lifestyle and retirement expenses. This type of planning carried out six months to a year helps you meet goals by telling your income what to do instead of wondering where it went.

The income and expense figures for the budget will come from your last three month’s pay stubs and from creditor bill statements. It is impossible to use the income God blessed you with in the best possible manner without keeping an updated monthly budget on paper or computer. No one can keep an accurate and consistent budget in his or her head. Consistently applying a reasonable budget to control your spending makes you a much better steward of the money God entrusts to you and helps you fulfill His plan for your life and be a great example to other people.

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

1Kings 17:8-10, Proverbs 16:9, Habakkuk 2:1-4, Luke 14:26-30, 2Corinthians 9:5-8

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

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

You can find many other MoneyWalk articles on Facebook by looking at the NOTES created by Randy Parlor at https://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=100000444069041&sk=notes.

You can connect with Randy Parlor on Twitter and Linkedin

You can also view and/or listen to MoneyWalk articles at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXnztOIesOKIrSd_H6c-8mQ

MoneyWalk 323: Escape Financial Struggles

This program will help you undo financial bondage.

God designed this world so that everyone needs some type of money for resource like shelter, transportation, food, clothing, medicine, etc. Most everyone will have an emergency that will require resources they don’t have to resolve the problem or better the situation, such as severe illness, unemployment, criminal or civil prosecution, homelessness, hunger, addiction, terrorist attacks, etc. Yet, many people make emergency situations worse because they fail to do all they can to provide for themselves and their families to stave off bad situations or take care of them when they inevitably arrive. This sometimes leads to other people being unwilling to extend themselves to help as much as they could because they have seen the mismanagement and may believe they would be turning their God-given wealth into poorly spent money as you may seem unlikely to change your undisciplined habits after receiving help.

Some people mismanage money God entrusts to them by having the default plan “spend, spend, spend” instead of the godly short, medium, and long term plan “give, save, spend” that is based on biblical principles for money management and wealth building. Other people fail to work diligently and regularly and live every moment spontaneously on their whims, which they often describe as the leading of the Holy Spirit. However, He leads people only in accordance with scriptural principles that show God intended able-bodied people to work and says those that do not work will also not eat (at least not very good on the dimes God entrusts to other people) and may need to experience dis-fellowship by the body of believers until they are willing to regain the mind of Christ about diligence, regularity, and discipline in work and good works.

Working irregularly when able-bodied or mismanaging your income will exacerbate and create emergencies in your life, disable you from being able to take care of problems for yourself, and lessen your ability to be as great a help as you could be to other people in need of help. Spending all you make on desires and taking out loans to get even more, before establishing a six-month emergency fund and investing at least ten percent of your income each pay period to build wealth to cover future needs and desires, negates your ability to budget, eliminate debt, save, invest, and regularly give at a maximum level. All of these tools help put you in the wealthy place that God desires for you.

In addition, properly managing your money is a great witness to everyone. It shows your allegiance to Christ and is necessary to completely fulfill your God-given purpose and have a truly meaningful and prosperous life. Many people will desire to follow Him because they come into contact with His love through money and resources you provide personally and corporately via church ministry. This provides many great opportunities for you to help people while sharing the gospel with them.

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

Genesis 41:36-40, Psalms 68:5-11, Acts 4:32-36, Philippians 4:10-20

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

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

You can find many other MoneyWalk articles on Facebook by looking at the NOTES created by Randy Parlor at https://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=100000444069041&sk=notes.

You can connect with Randy Parlor on Twitter and Linkedin

You can also view and/or listen to MoneyWalk articles at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXnztOIesOKIrSd_H6c-8mQ