Transcription
I wonder if the way we handle our finances is a bad witness about the Lord. I think it is. I think what we ought to be doing is helping people understand when you get your life lined up with the Lord, He can help your finances as well.
Thank you, thank all you guys for joining us here in the studio, and thank you for joining us at home. Welcome to Beyond Blessed. We are talking about that God desires to bless us, even beyond what we could think or imagine. But there is a purpose. The purpose is that He wants us and desires us to be a blessing.
I also want to say this right here. God blesses us also just because He loves us. Just because He loves us. He really does. He loves you. Think about this. Here's what Jesus said: "If you know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more does the Father know how to give good gifts to His children?" And so, God does like to bless us because He loves us. But He also blesses us according to Abraham, the Abrahamic covenant, so that we can be a blessing.
So, what we're doing is, we're talking about today the 10 financial commandments. Now, let me just say this because there are 10 of them, I put this in two shows. And so, I've already covered the first five. So today, I'm going to cover the the next five, or the last five. And so, you just want to catch that other show, okay? But, um, let's also remind you, we're going to start at number six. And what we're doing is, we're actually lining these commandments up with the Ten Commandments. The original Ten Commandments were lining up with the ten financial commandments, okay?
So, here's number six. Because we've already done the first five, another show. Here's the sixth financial commandment: Live on a budget. Live on a budget. Now, this might shock you. The one I'm lining up with, I'm lining up with the sixth commandment, and it's Exodus 20, verse 13: "You shall not murder." Here's the reason I'm lining that up with "live on a budget." Because if you're not living on a budget, you're killing yourself. That's what you're doing. Or you're wanting to kill yourself. One or the other. Some say you're thinking about murder, you know, somehow because you're not living on a budget.
A budget is a plan. It's a plan. It's a goal. If you, if you don't have a goal in mind, you'll never reach it. It's just, it's just that simple. You, or let me say this, if your goal is nothing, you probably will reach it. So, you have to have a goal. You have to have a plan.
I remember when I was in sixth or seventh grade, I think seventh grade, I went out for the basketball team. And, um, I, I just knew that I was the best basketball player out there. There just was just no doubt in my mind about that. And so, we're running around practicing, and I'd already heard we were going to do some layups. And that's where you dribble the ball up to the basket, and then you just kind of throw it up there. And it's called the layup, you know. And so, when we got lined up to do it, I got first in line. And the reason I got first in line was, I thought, "What's going to happen when I do this? Is the coach going to say, 'Now, stop! I want everyone to look at what this young man just did. This is the perfect example of what a layup should look like. Let's, I mean, it's unbelievable. I've never even seen one. This is the next Michael Jordan,' I'm sure, you know."
So, okay. So I took off. And before I even got to the goal, the coach said, "Stop! Stop right there!" And he said, "I want everyone to look at what he's doing." And I thought, "He's already, I mean, I haven't even shot yet, and I'm so good." You know. He said, "Where is he looking?" And everyone said, "He's looking at the ball." And he said, "That's right." He said, "But that's the goal." And he said, "When you play basketball, you never look at the ball. You always look at the goal." And then he said to me, "Go back to the end of the line, and you try it next time."
It was a very encouraging moment. It took years of therapy to get over. But the point is, most people with their finances are just doing this, never even thinking about a goal down the road. You see what I'm saying? And so, you have to have a goal. When you're sick, you go to the doctor, right? Why not go to a financial doctor? There are all these resources out there, and people never even ask for help. And there are lots of good resources out there.
So, let me, let's talk again about this plan. I said, "Live on a budget." A budget seems to be a bad word to most people. They don't like that word. It is not a bad word. And one of the reasons is, is because they think, "I don't even know how to do a budget." That's why you go to someone who does know how. You go to a coach. But here's the reason we don't do it. Okay? Remember the coach told the whole class what I was doing wrong. I think some people are afraid to go to, like maybe a small group where they talk about finances, because I think they're afraid that the leader of the group is going to say, "Okay, everybody, get your checkbooks out and pass them around. And then they're going to look at yours and they're going to say, 'Oh my! I want everybody to look at Joe's checkbook. This is the worst checkbook I've ever seen.'" Okay? That's not what people do. That's not what financial coaches do. So, you need to ask for help.
Now, uh, let me give you a little, uh, thing, a tidbit about a budget. A budget allows you to make non-emotional decisions about your finances. You can't imagine how much trouble we get into because we make an emotional decision. And, and, and with finances, it's simply numbers. That's all this. It's just numbers. Do the numbers add up? I've actually had people ask me before, you know, um, "Do you think we should buy this house?" And I said, "There's no way I can tell you that without looking at your budget." Because it's just a numbers decision. That's all it is. That's what a budget does. It helps you do that.
So, let me tell you about this. So, I, when I implemented this at our home years and years ago, I came up with this little saying, and I, I started saying, um, I called him Mr. Budget, the budget. And, um, so when Debbie would ask me for something, I would say, "Well, sugar, I would love to buy that for you, but let's see what Mr. Budget says." "Oh, Mr. Budget says no. I'm so sorry. Mr. Budget's mean." "And he's mean." "Yeah, you mean." And then, you know, come give your idea a hug, you know. So, okay. That worked fine until I wanted some new golf clubs. And then she said to me, "Oh, Mr. Budget says no."
All right. So that's number six. Here's number seven: Live below your means. Live below your means. This, this goes along with the seventh commandment, Exodus 20, verse 14: "Listen, you shall not commit adultery." Now, listen. A person who commits adultery is living beyond the means that God has provided for him or her. And there are two reasons why we live beyond our means. One, I'm going to talk about, will apply even with adultery. But the other, second, will both apply to math, all right, into finances, right? But here's the reason: We're not content with what we have. That's why a man commits adultery. He's not content with what he has. That's why Christians don't live within their means.
Now, please hear me. This is very strong. But when you do not live within your means, you are actually shaking your fist in the face of God, and you are saying to God, "I am not content with You, and I am not content with what You've provided for me. I'm not content with Your provision. So, I'm going to find another way to go beyond Your provision." Live within your means.
Here's one thing Paul said, Philippians 4, verse 11: "I have learned in whatever state I am to be content." Now, he's talking about, he said, "Sometimes I've been abounding," you know, "I've had more than enough. Sometimes I've been abased," which means I didn't have enough. But he said, "I've learned." I love this because he said, "I've learned." That means you can actually learn to be content. And this is the apostle that wrote a third of the New Testament, and he needed to learn this principle. "I have learned in whatever state I'm in to be content." You can learn to be content.
So, two reasons people don't live within their means. The first one's content. They're not content. Here's a second one. Let me read you the verse first. Luke 14, verse 28: "For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it?" Okay? Here's the second one: Count. People don't count. So, they don't live within their means.
Now, um, I'm going to use a word that to some of you is a, a bad word. Okay? It's actually not a bad word, but to some of you, it's a bad word. Some of you, it will bring up bad memories. It's actually a good word. Am I building up enough suspense? But some of you are going to hate it. You're going to have chills go up your spine when I use this word. All right, everybody ready? Math. [Laughter] Anyone have chills go? Yeah, yeah. Okay. And did you tell your teacher, "I'm never going to need this when I grow up"? You do, though, don't you? Yeah. They'll see. Yeah, you do. You need math. Okay. But some people are good at math. Some are not good at math. But that's why we have coaches. That's why people that can help us, people that can give us instruction. All right.
But we have found when we've helped people with their finances, so many times, they're, they're not bad people. They just can't count. They just can't count. I actually remember saying to this couple, "You're not rebellious, you just can't count." I said to him, "What is your monthly income? What's your total monthly income?" They said, "Four thousand dollars a month." That's okay. So, we're going to, in my mind, I'm taking out the tax, taking out the taxes. I can pretty much figure out what that's going to be. Taking out savings, taking on things like this. But I said, "Okay, so that's how much you have coming in." So, I said, "Now, you don't need to tell me how much your house payment is, or your car payment, or any of that, or if you have two car payments. I just need numbers, okay? You have four thousand a month coming in. Tell me, give me some numbers that you know you have bills that are going to come every month."
So, they said, "Well, um, twelve hundred dollars a month, four hundred dollars a month, six hundred dollars a month, four hundred, four hundred, three hundred, three hundred, two hundred, two hundred, four hundred, four hundred, three hundred, two hundred, four hundred, four hundred, and four hundred." Okay. I said, "Do you realize that you passed four thousand dollars a long time ago?" But they didn't. Again, no budget, no no way to know if you have this much coming in, no way.
And, and one thing that you, you could, you could easily start a budget is this. And when we talk about living below our means, too. Ten, tithe, and ten savings. That's just a simple way to start a budget. You never ever budget to spend everything you make because you've got to have a contingency fund. You've got to be able to do this. So, we need to live below our means. We need to be able to count and do our math. We need to be able to have a budget.
Here's number eight: Don't buy now and pay later. The world tells us this: "Don't buy now and pay later." This goes along with Exodus 20, verse 15: "You shall not steal." And you might think, "Well, who am I stealing from if I pay it off?" You're stealing from yourself because you don't have the funds to do what you're free, what you would like to do anymore. Your funds are already committed. Sometimes there are people that I know who have 80% of their funds already committed. They're just committed. It's committed to a house payment, it's committed to a car payment, it's committed to a boat payment, it's committed to this, committed to this, committed. They have no free money at all. Nothing free. "You shall not steal." This is stealing.
Now, let me tell you why this. Behind every commandment is a principle, and there's a principle about debt in the Bible, okay? So, please hear me with this, all right? This is very, very important. God wired you to have hope. He wired you to have hope. Romans 8:24 says, "For we were saved in hope." But hope that is seen is not hope. Now, listen. Hope that is seen or realized is not hope. For why does one still hope for what he sees or what he already has? Why would you still hope for it if you already have it?
Okay? So, in other words, if you're hoping to be able to, you know, get some outdoor furniture, and you just go put it on a credit card, why? You don't hope for it anymore. Why would you hope for something you can see? You can see it. It's in your backyard. But every time you look in your backyard and it's not there, you're hoping for it, and you're planning for it, and you're preparing for it, and you're, you're, you're saving for it. And what's happening is, hope is building up in your life. And this is something God planned. It's called delayed gratification. And God wired emotions for delayed gratification so that when you get it after six months of saving, every time you pass by now, you look out there and you think, "Thank You, Lord. That looks so nice. That makes our backyard look so nice, and it's so nice to sit out there and watch the sunset and all."
But if you go down and buy it, and you didn't have the money, and now you got payments, and it's another payment on top of payment, now every time you walk by, you have stress. Are y'all following me? These, these commandments, these financial commandments, these things I'm talking about relate to more than just budgeting your money. It relates to your emotional health. And God wired you to have that delayed gratification. By the way, one of the signs, one of the signs of clinical depression is a lack of hope. Would you also like to know two other statistics? America is the most in-debt culture in the world, and the most depressed culture in the world. More diagnosed depression and more debt. So, please hear me. When God tells us things, it's not for His good, it's for our good.
Um, uh, just a few weeks ago, I did Dave Ramsey's show, and, and Dave and I are good friends, and we love each other. And so, we were talking about Beyond Blessed and, you know, things like this. And we're talking about delayed gratification and all. And there's something that, that happened, and he told me the start of it, how it started. This guy called in, and, and when he answered the phone, this guy started shouting, "I'm debt-free! I'm debt-free!" And they were like, "Man, that's great." And he just kept shouting, "I'm debt-free! I'm debt-free!" Now, I don't know if you ever listen to Dave Ramsey, but that's become something now that when people call, and when they get debt-free, it's the debt-free shout, they call it. Here's what it is. It's delayed gratification. It's joy. God wired you to have joy. But "buy now, pay later" takes it all away. You have, you will never have that joy.
But here's number nine: Be a good witness. When we're talking about whether your finances be a good witness. This goes with Exodus 20, verse 16: "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not bear false witness against your name." Okay? Now, we've, in the commandment, we say, "Well, you should not lie." And that's true, totally true. But if you're bearing a false witness to your neighbor, could you be doing that financially? In other words, you're sitting there talking your neighbor about the Lord, and he's looking over your shoulder at a new car, but a yard that looks horrible with unpainted shutters, and it's the worst house on the block. I wonder if the way we handle our finances is a bad witness about the Lord. I think it is. I think what we ought to be doing is helping people understand when you get your life lined up with the Lord, He can help your finances as well.
So, that's, that's the ninth one. Be a good steward. And here's the tenth one: Be content. Be content. We talked a little bit about contentment, but I, I need to go into a little bit more. Exodus 20, verse 17, the 10th commandment: "You shall not covet your neighbor's house." Then it goes on and says, "or anything that is your neighbor's." Okay? Why do I, why am I saying being content? Because if you're coveting what someone else has, you're not content with what you have. As a matter of fact, it actually makes you more discontented. You become more discontented with your car that blows a puff of smoke every time you start it up when your neighbor starts up his nice new one. You become more discontent because you're looking at his car.
Okay? So, but let's, let's go on. Let's, let's think about some other things. When you covet what someone else has, that person becomes God to you, and that person's material possessions become idols. And here's the reason I say that person becomes God. Because what he buys now, you have to buy. What he has, you have to do. He becomes your God. And what he has becomes an idol to you because you're coveting it. By the way, I say an idol. Let me read you the scripture. Colossians 3:5: "Therefore, put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire." Now, listen closely. "And covetousness, which is idolatry." Covetousness, which is idolatry. That's Colossians. So, when we covet, we made an idol of something.
And we've been talking about living beyond blessed, God blessing us for the purpose of being a blessing. So, for years and years, Debbie and I, uh, were on the cash system. We didn't have credit cards. We didn't use them because we wanted to make sure we could account for everything that we had. We now use credit cards, but we obviously pay them off at the end of every month. We have savings in the bank. We're in a good place financially, not because we make more, but because we manage well what God gives us. That's the main thing. Because some people say, "Well, yeah, maybe you, you know, made some more money now because you've sold some books or something." Okay. I know people that make a lot of money that are still messed up financially. So, it's not whether you make a little or a lot. It's how you manage what you have.
But for years, we were all cash, okay? And, um, so when we were going on vacation, I took cash. I took a bunch of cash. So, I had all this cash. We went on vacation. We were going to use the credit card because we had the money in the bank and in the budget to cover it. But I just, without even thinking, went to the bank and got a thousand dollars in cash, which would be normally what I would take on vacation. So, I had 10 hundred-dollar bills. That morning, I'm having my quiet time, and I was, I just was thinking about, I had, you know, about how big my wallet was, and it dawned on me. I had this roll of money, this thousand dollars of cash in my, in my pocket, you know. And I, I'm talking to the Lord, and I kind of had a little laugh with the Lord. I said, "Lord, here I am. Thank You for bringing me to the place that I don't have to carry this much cash with me anymore because I've got the money in the bank. I've got the money in the budget." But it is kind of funny. My old habits die hard. I got a thousand dollars cash, and the Lord and I laugh about it that day.
Debbie and I go to lunch. This family walks in. Two parents, four kids. Okay? It's a family of six. They start looking over the menu, and they start adding up what things cost, and they talk about sharing meals. They're talking about being good stewards. And I thought, "They're, they're believers, and they're trying to be good stewards." And pretty soon, when the meal came, they held hands, and they, and they prayed. And all of a sudden, it was like, I thought to myself, "I know why I have all this cash with me." And it was like the Lord said, "I do too. I planned it this way, actually."
And then Debbie knows that sometimes I give hundred-dollar bills away when the Lord tells me. And she said, "Do you have a hundred-dollar bill?" Because she looked over and saw it too. I said, "I got 10 of them." So, we went over and we told them, "We want to give you this because you're being good stewards." And the guy told me, "This will pay for our whole vacation." And I remember saying to these four kids, "Don't ever forget the day that a stranger paid for your meal because you asked God to bless your meal and you were being good stewards of what God's given you."
My prayer for every one of you is that you will be a good steward of what God gives you so that you can give generously when God prompts you. Let's pray. Lord, I pray for every person watching. I pray, God, that You would take these principles and secure them in our hearts. I pray, Lord, for people who are watching who are under financial stress and have lived that way for years. I pray, God, that the truths of these messages will break that financial stress and bondage today. It will be broken today. And I pray, Lord, that every person watching will be able to be a great steward of the funds You give us, and that we will be able to be generous givers when You prompt us. In Jesus' name, amen.
Thank you so much for watching, and may God continue to bless you so you can be a blessing. [Applause] Friend, with the support of heroes like you, TBN is beaming the hope and grace of Jesus around the world in multiple languages. This month, for your gift of support in any amount, we're excited to offer best-selling author Dr. David Jeremiah's book, "Forward." Take a moment to visit TBN.org. Go forward. God bless.