MoneyWalk 333: The LORD’s Plan For You

This program will help you undo financial bondage.

Have you failed to live according to biblical principles? If so, you’re undoubtedly feeling pain from the consequences thereof including excessive bills and financial headaches. This could have been avoided by employing principles such as writing the vision for your future down on paper along with the steps you’ll take to reach it. This must include a budget identifying your income, giving, saving, and expenses.

To identify the vision God has for your life and thus you should pursue, study the bible to learn the Great Commission that Jesus Christ gave the church. Since all believers are members of His body this commission lays the foundation that your specific part in the mission should be built upon. Also, pray daily for God to continually enlighten you about the specific path He wants you to follow. As you thank Him for His goodness to you, praise, worship, and pray, He is sure to open doors and identify steps that you should take as well as close doors and identify steps you should not take in pursuing your mission in the marketplace.

Everyone’s path is not full time work for a Church or para-Church ministry. You already are a full time worker for the LORD via any legitimate, legal, ethical career in which you seek to do a good job, submit and obey authority in all directions within moral boundaries, and seek to let your example be a witness of the change Christ makes in a committed believer’s life. Whether your path is homemaking, business, medicine, politics, child-care, garbage collection, etc., the vision for your life and business can and should line up under God’s commission with the church and His vision to bring into His kingdom everyone who welcomes Him into their heart.

Your career (as employee or business owner or both) should be a platform that helps build the kingdom of God by leading those around you into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ and making disciples of them. Good stewardship (management) of the money that comes into your life plays a vital role in your ability to affect others because financial headaches will keep you focused on your needs instead of the need others have to meet Christ and mature in Him.

Second jobs and get rich quick schemes that result from you catering to ever increasing indulgences that do not reasonably fit within your income will keep you serving the enemy more than God. In addition, you will not be able to give abundantly of the money entrusted to you and thus will play a much smaller role in leading people to Christ and making disciples of them than you play in catering to your material excesses.

No matter the position, power, titles, and fame you obtain on earth, you will always feel emptiness of purpose and fulfillment, until you learn to incorporate biblical principles in your career and business activities. That’s why budgeting, living within your means, eliminating debt, saving, investing, and abundant giving are principles you need to follow to make yourself available to serve God and uplift yourself and other people.

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

Exodus 35:1, Proverbs 16:9, Matthew 16:24-25, Luke 14:28-32

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 332: You Will Not Follow What Is Not Written

This program will help you undo financial bondage.

People mistakenly believe they can remember the intricacies of what they need to do in future days, months, and years without writing out a plan. Of course, they cannot and thus wind up getting side-tracked by many little obstacles life and the enemy put in their way. Later in life, they replay in their minds their past dreams of having enough money to retire in their mid-fifties, do the work of the ministry unencumbered, dwell in leisure whenever they choose, while driving very nice cars and living in a dream home without a mortgage payment. Yet, they find themselves unable to live that dream or have the desired material things without great financial stress. So, what happened?

They failed to write a simple long term plan with at least a few short-term and long-term goals, objectives, and actions they would pursue to get to the abundant land they believed the LORD prepared for them. They had no roadmap for the Lord to correct and revise to get them there. Therefore, their dream never materialized. Don’t let this be your future picture.

You don’t have to work forever to pay bills for goods and services you don’t remember buying thus requiring you to work forever at jobs you’re not thrilled about. God is instructing you to ask for His help in writing the vision and charting the path because this will motivate you to follow it and make necessary course corrections along the way to get you on the adventure He wants to take with you and ultimately help you fulfill the destiny He has in mind for you. This also allows you to trust God to bring to pass the fulfillment of goals that human power alone cannot achieve.

If you do not have a vision at the moment, start with one based on eleven biblical financial principles (1. God owns everything, 2. Work as unto Him (employment and entrepreneurial endeavors), 3. Be Content, 4. Use Self Control, 5. Sacrifice the unnecessary, 6. Tithe and give free-will offerings, 7. Budget to help you employ all the principles, 8. Seek to become debt-free within the next few years, 9. Stop Cosigning, 10. Save & Invest, and 10.Diversify your assets).

Then, based on them use the Seven Steps to Financial Freedom (1. Write and follow a budget that identifies your current income, show how much extra income you needed, and help control your expenses, 2. Save a $1,000 emergency fund, 3. Pay off all non-mortgage debt (smallest debt first to largest debt last), 4. Save an additional $9,000 in the emergency fund, 5. Put at least ten percent of your gross income into investments (401k, 403b, 457, Roth IRA, or other investment plans largely in no load, low expense stock index mutual funds) and keep it invested through the next 10, 20, or 30 years up to retirement and a great portion of it beyond that time, 6. Put all other disposable income (which is far greater at this time toward paying off your mortgage (which will likely be paid off within seven years) and if necessary put a reasonable portion of it toward education expenses, and 7. Give and live abundantly after all debts are paid off, you have adequate emergency funds, savings for other periodic purchases you will need to make (roof replacement, furnace replacement, a car, etc.), and you are putting at least 10% into investments for your future).

Good stewardship is not only about giving – it also includes taking action to employ the other ten principles in your life and realizing that giving must be in concert with what you have (not what you do not have). In order to be a faithful giver throughout your life that continually gives a far greater percentage of income than your peers, you must be consistent, disciplined, faithful and reasonable by ensuring that your monthly expenses do not exceed your monthly income minus tithes & a reasonable free-will offering, and a reasonable amount for savings & investments, and a reasonable amount for debt elimination & freedom.

Giving beyond what your current / prudent asset level allows and beyond an amount that reasonably fits into your budget based on current income and expenses should only be done on a Faith Promise basis in which you hear the voice of God speak what He wants to give through you above and beyond current disposable income and assets. Then, you should take on extra work, no cost / low cost entrepreneurial endeavors, and prayer. When God allows the extra money beyond your current income and assets to come to you (through your endeavors or any number of miracle situations) then plug it into your budget and give what God envisioned through you.

When you have done all you are reasonably able to do, do not feel guilty or conflicted or fear that He will bring disaster upon you when the extra does not come into your life and you thus cannot give it. Simply keep going back to the well of faith as you hear Him speak to you in the future believing He will come through with what He wants you to give. When you have failed to do all you could, simply repent and decide that in the future you will do as scripture instructs and the Holy Spirit directs and continue to believe His word will come to pass even if it takes as long as it took Abraham & Sarah to bear Isaac, the seed of the nation God promised would come through their lineage. God will be pleased and glorified and you will prosper from hearing, understanding, and by wisdom and faith employing the whole counsel of God concerning good stewardship (biblical financial principles).

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

Proverbs 30:25, Ecclesiastes 10:19, Habakkuk 2:2-4, Luke 16:8-12

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