Hot Tips for Financial Security
G. EDWARD REID
One of the many benefits of being a Seventh-day Adventist is learning that God has an interest in us personally. Much counsel is given in the Bible regarding such important life skills as health, family relations, fellowship with other believers, personal spiritual growth, and money management. God wants us to prosper (3 John 2), to live abundant lives (John 10:10), and to experience His wisdom and blessing (Prov. 3:5-10).
How we handle our money has a great deal to do with our personal happiness, our stress level, the quality of our family lives, the stability of our marriages, and the success of our chosen careers. The devil would like to see these areas of our lives messed up, and in many cases he’s been quite successful.
In the United States, personal debt is a major concern. People must either live within their means or their creditors will eat them alive. It has been said, “He who rides a tiger cannot dismount.” From a financial perspective, that tiger is personal debt. Debt and its resulting bankruptcies have drastically changed the American family’s financial picture. In 2002 there were 30,700 personal/family bankruptcies in the United States-every week! More than 1.6 million families went under financially.
There are three main reasons people have money problems.
Ignorance. This has nothing to do with aptitude or basic intelligence; people are simply unaware of biblical principles of money management. There is hope-if they seek practical financial advice and put it into practice.
Greed and selfishness. Many families live beyond their means. They are unwilling to live in, drive, or wear what they can really afford. They imagine they are just too poor to tithe. Consequently they live without God’s promised wisdom and blessing (see Deut. 28:1-14; Prov. 3:5-10).
Unfortunate tragedy. Tragedy can strike in the form of a serious illness or hospitalization without adequate insurance. It could be abandonment by a spendthrift marriage partner, the result of a natural disaster, or a major financial loss beyond our control.
Here are 10 simple points for getting control of your finances.
1. Learn all you can about biblical money management and practice what you learn. Read books, attend seminars, talk with those who know what’s going on.
2. Pray for God’s wisdom and blessing in your life.
3. Ask God to transform your heart from selfishness to love. Focus on helping others.
4. Get organized. Develop a budget; have a plan.
5. Spend less than you make. Live within your means.
6. Save a little every pay period. Start with only $50. Practice delayed gratification.
7. Get out of debt, and then avoid it like AIDS. Interest is one expense you can live without. And no investment is as secure as a repaid debt.
8. Be a diligent worker.
9. Be faithful to God in tithes and offerings. God has promised many blessings to those who are financially faithful.
10. Remember: this world is not our home.
We won’t take any material thing from this earth to the next (1 Tim. 6:6, 7), but we can send it on ahead (Matt. 6:19-21). We Christians have some real inside information: we know that this world will soon be destroyed and everything on it burned up (which will reduce its value considerably). But that which we have stored up in heaven by helping others and advancing God’s cause will be safe for eternity.
We live in a world of uncertainty. People-even Christians-have lost millions in fraudulent schemes and in what seemed to be legitimate investments. One simple, fundamental rule of investing should never be forgotten: the greater the return being offered, the greater the risk. That’s always the case.
Ellen White wrote: “The parable [of the talents in Matthew 25] applies to the temporal means which God has entrusted to His people” (Testimonies for the Church, vol. 1, p. 197). Let us so live and manage that when our Savior returns we can hear those awesome words “Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your Lord” (Matt. 25:21, NKJV).