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Christian Family Principles
Written by Dr. Lester Hutson

Copyright - Lester Hutson - 1981
This material is copyrighted and may not be copied or reproduced without the express written permission of Dr. Lester Hutson.

Managing Your Money

Chapter Twenty Nine

INTRODUCTION: Text * Luke 16:11

One of the facts of family life is money management. Failure here can cause problems in many other areas. The quality of life for most individuals and families, not to mention churches and businesses as well as our government, could be improved immensely by sound financial management. By sound financial management, I do not necessarily speak of having more money, although a minimum amount is important. Instead, I speak of the ability to manage properly whatever amount you have. Some people with a small amount manage it carefully and live well, while others with much more squander it and are in a constant financial bind. The difference is management.

Principles are taught in God’s Word that can free God’s men and women, His families and His churches from slavery at the money market. Too many of us have been bound there far too long and thereby have limited God so that He could not work in us "Both to will and to do of His good pleasure," as in Philippians 2:13. How much better off individuals, families and churches would be if they had financial freedom!

I. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT THAT GOD’S PEOPLE UNDERSTAND GOD’S PURPOSES IN THEIR FINANCES.

A. God has four basic purposes in supplying us with finances. The finances can be in the form of money or other material goods.

1. First, God gives us finances to provide for our basic needs in life.

a. Jesus said, "Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him," in Matthew 6:8. He continued in verses 30-32, "If God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought saying, What shall we eat? Or, what shall we drink? Or, wherewithal shall we be clothed? [For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:] for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things."

b. In these verses the two basic needs of life are mentioned. They are food and clothing. God wants to supply our needs, and if we are willing to obey His commands to work and submit ourselves to His will, He will supply these basic needs for us. Listen to Matthew 7:9-11, "For what man is there of you, whom if his son asked bread will he give him a stone? Or, if he ask of fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?"

c. It would seem honest to say that food could include medical attention. Many leading medical people believe the key to good health is proper diet. It would also be fair to say that clothing would include shelter.

2. A second purpose of God in giving us finances is to illustrate His power.

a. Jesus said in Luke 12:32, "Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom." He is not saving all His blessings to give us later. He loves to work and show His mighty power today.

b. Ephesians 3:20 speaks of "Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us." He can open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing so big that there will not be room enough to receive it, according to Malachi 3:10.

c. By sustaining us in our needs and by adding to our finances, especially in impossible situations, God demonstrates His mighty power. When the situation looks bleak and impossible to us, then God opens the way before us; we see His power, and our faith is strengthened.

3. Thirdly, God can supply finances to unite His people.

a. Those Christians who have can help those who have not, so that the sharing of the finances God gave can draw them together. Fellow Christian, when you receive finances from the Lord, you would do well to consider the fact that God may have given to you so that you may give to a weak Christian, and thus unite the two of you closer in Christian love.

b. That is what Paul wrote about in II Corinthians 8:13-15. He said, "For I mean not that other men be eased and ye be burdened: but by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance, also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality; As it is written, he that had gathered much had nothing over; and he that had gathered little had no lack."

4. Fourthly, God gives finances for the purpose of confirming direction in the lives of His children.

a. As long as a child of God is walking according to the truth of God's word, God's promise is, "But my God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus," in Philippians 4:19.

b. God has not promised to supply all the needs of those who do not walk according to the truth of His word. To the contrary, these are promised discipline in Hebrews 12:5-11, are likely not to have their needs met in James 4:2-3, and often find themselves in want in Luke 16:14.

c. So the giving of finances can be a sign that God's child is going in the right direction, and an absence of finances can be a sign the child is heading in the wrong direction. You be very careful that you don't make it your business to judge others in this regard, according to Matthew 7:1-2.

B. A proper understanding of these four purposes of God in giving finances can explain why we lack money or finances at times.

1. In the first place, we lack money because we don't need it.

a. We have a common habit of confusing our wants and our needs. Most of our discontent and gripes of lack of money these days do not come because our needs were not satisfied. Instead of being thankful that our needs were met, we want what others have, which is covetousness. Advertisers are constantly seeking to make us want more.

b. Very few people, saved or lost, in our country especially, do not have the two basic needs of life which God wants to supply His children: food and raiment. You may not be able to eat food out at restaurants, and at home you may not be able to eat steaks and other high priced foods, but most people have enough to eat well if they watch their buying. Likewise, with clothing and shelter, you may not have the nicest clothes or the biggest, fanciest house, but you do have your basic needs met.

c. The apostle Paul said we ought to be thankful and content with that. His words in I Timothy 6:6-8 are, "But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain that we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us be therewith content."

d. Fellow Christian, if you are short of money, consider why. Maybe you lack money because you don’t really need it. Your heavenly Father knows what you have need of and will supply that, but He didn’t guarantee to supply the things you covet and the things designed to satisfy your fleshly lusts.

2. In the second place, we sometimes lack money because we have violated the scriptural principle.

a. God may have given us the money, but we misspent it. James 4:3 mentions that we sometimes consume our money upon our lusts. For example, people take the money God gave them for food and raiment, and they spend it on cigarettes, liquors, toys for the children, pleasure items and such other non-essential items. Then they find themselves without sufficient money for food, clothing, shelter, transportation and other needed items.

Others misspend their money on a house that is too expensive for their budget, and this robs their grocery money, their tithes and offerings, clothing and many other areas of their livelihood.

There are countless ways to misspend. For example, you can buy a pound of Irish potatoes for eleven cents. The same pound of potatoes in the form of potato chips cost $.99. Many a person misuses the money God gives him on just such foolish purchases, then gripes and complains because he is in a financial squeeze and has no money.

b. No doubt the current, number one way we violate a scriptural principle of finance is by the use of credit. Christians should not borrow to purchase depreciable items. When they do, they lose by depreciation, plus they lose by interest on the loan. These two losses combined rob good money that is needed badly in other areas. The credit card is one of the greatest plagues of the modern world. It makes it so easy to over-spend, and most Christians are up to their ears in credit. Solomon warned in Proverbs 22:7, "The borrower is servant to the lender." Many of you reading these words are servants. You’ve become enslaved to Sears, Penneys, Gulf, Visa, Master Charge and other such masters. Some of you can’t pay your tithes and credit is the reason why. It has tied you so that you don’t have any money left.

c. You can’t violate scriptural principles which teach wise spend- ing, living within your income and just business dealing and still have plenty of money. Before you complain too much about not having enough money, consider where and how you spent the money God has given you.

3. Thirdly, you may lack money because God is testing your faith.

a. Peter says, "Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: that the trial of your faith, be much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ," in I Peter 1:6-7. God brings you through testings to strengthen you and bolster your faith.

b. Once you’ve gotten into a pinch where you have no money, yet God sustains you and brings you through it anyway, your faith is greatly strengthened. God has said He will sustain you in Philippians 4:19. You will never know that in an experimental sense until He tests you, so in order to make His power in riches known in you, God brings you down to a point where you have nothing, then He works the whole thing out.

c. No doubt you’d have never trusted Him if you’d have had the money to handle it yourself. So, God withholds the money from you so that you have to trust Him. It is in times like this that your faith is really tested. It becomes evident whether you are really a person of faith or not.

4. Fourthly, you may lack money because God wants a major change in your life.

a. He may want you in a totally different location, to pursue totally different methods or to completely change your vocation. After all, God does have a will for every person according to I Peter 4:2.

b. In spite of the fact that we should all do the will of God voluntarily, most of us don’t. Ephesians 6:6 speaks of "Doing the will of God from the heart." When we don’t do what God wants us to do, He begins applying pressure on us to force us to do what He wants. Hebrews 12:10-11 will prove this. One of the ways God brings this pressure to bear on us is by withholding money.

c. It could very well be that God is shutting the economic doors of heaven on some of you because He has a whole new plan in life for you. If that is His purpose, you will never have much money until you get into the place where He wants you. I personally have experienced this in 1962 and 1963.

C. Fellow Christian, consider money, why God gives it to you, and why He withholds it.

1. It may very well help you see why you’re in the shape you are in today.

2. It will surely help you understand what to expect in the future.

II. EVERY CHILD OF GOD SHOULD SEEK TO REACH FINANCIAL FREEDOM.

A. Financial freedom means freedom in at least seven areas of finance.

1. Financial freedom means freedom from debt.

a. Romans 13:8; clearly says, "Owe no man anything."

b. Many of you have never known the joy of being free from debt. Even if you took away your house note and auto note, you’d still be overwhelmed with debt. You have clearly disobeyed Romans 13:8; therefore, you do not know financial freedom from debt.

2. Financial freedom also means freedom from the pressure of bills.

a. Bills, caused by debts, do put a tremendous pressure on you. They divide your attention so that you cannot serve the Lord as fully as you otherwise would.

b. In speaking of material goods, Jesus spoke in Matthew 6:24 and said, "No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." Note that in verse 32 of this same chapter, He said of material things "for after all these things do the Gentiles seek."

c. Every child of God should work himself into such a position that he is not dominated or pressured from bills. Management according to scriptural principles can help produce this freedom.

3. Financial freedom also means freedom from the love of money.

a. I Timothy 6:9-11 says, "But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness." The love of money is a terrible master, vicious, cruel and never satisfied.

b. The apostle John wrote, "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him," in I John 2:15.

c. Oh, how freedom here would revolutionize the lives of some of you. Your affection for money and what it will buy is ruining you. Obey God’s word and be free, my friend.

4. Financial freedom means freedom from the care of riches.

a. As most people gain more finances, more and more of their attention is drawn to the care and keeping of those finances. They have to think of taxes, investment opportunities, laws that effect their finances, general economy factors and a host of other things.

b. It is not at all difficult to see what our Lord meant when He spoke of "the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches" in Matthew 13:22. Truly, the affairs of wealth can dominate a Christian’s thinking and ruin his effectiveness for the Lord. This kind of reaction to riches doesn’t have to occur, but it usually does.

c. Financial freedom is not letting the cares of riches find a lodging place in you.

5. It is also freedom from the consequences of ill gotten gain.

a. Wealth that is gotten through honest dealings is a crown to the person who acquires it. Solomon said, "The crown of the wise is their riches," in Proverbs 14:24.

b. Riches gotten through deceit, dishonest methods and injustice is a scourge to the one who gets them. Listen to James 5:1-6, "Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days, Behold, the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you."

c. So, financial freedom is to gain whatever money you gain honestly, to know that every penny you own came to you without a single violation of scriptural principles.

6. Financial freedom is also freedom from "get rich quick" schemes.

a. Listen to Proverbs 28:22, "He that hasteth to be rich hath an evil eye, and considereth not that poverty shall come upon him." This condemns gambling, unjust interest rates and a host of other "get rich quick schemes."

b. If you would be rich quickly, let the Lord make you that way. King David said, "Lord, by thy favor thou hast made my mountain to stand strong," in Psalm 30:7. The Lord told Adam, "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread," in Genesis 3:19. Under divine inspiration the Apostle Paul said, "That if any would not work, neither should he eat. For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies. Now them that are such we command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ, that with all quietness they work, and eat their own bread," in II Thessalonians 3:10-12. The way to true riches is faithfulness and labor in work.

c. You are never financially free until you trust in the Lord to supply your needs and overcome that urge to "get rich quick."

7. Financial freedom also means freedom from business entanglements.

a. I’m not speaking of business involvements that are Godly and honest. I am speaking of such business entanglements that bend your Christian principles and hinder your service to God. For example, a job that takes you away from God’s house on Sundays is an entanglement. A business that advertises falsely, sells faulty products and in any other way cheats the customer is a business in which a child of God should not be entangled.

b. Paul wrote, "No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier," in II Timothy 2:4. No Christian should be involved in a business that in any way diminishes his service to the Lord.

B. No person who borrows on depreciable items will every achieve full financial freedom.

1. In the first place, he violates the scriptures which tell him to "owe no man anything," in Romans 13:8.

2. In the second place, it puts him in bondage to another man, for Proverbs 22:7 says, "The borrower is servant to the lender." Listen also to Moses’ warning of Deuteronomy 28:43-44, "The stranger that is within thee shall get up above thee very high; and thou shalt come down very low. He shall lend to thee, and thou shalt not lend to him: he shall be the head and thou shalt be the tail."

3. In the third place, such borrowing presumes on the future, in spite of the fact that God’s word says, "Go to now, ye that say, today or tomorrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, if the Lord will , we shall live and do this or that. But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil," in James 4:13-16. Proverbs 27:1 also warns, "Boast not thy self of tomorrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth."

4. This presumption on the future produces an insecurity, in view of the fact that you can never be sure what the future holds. The insecurity is heightened as you see good money siphoned off to pay interest while the item itself depreciates steadily.

5. Borrowing to buy depreciable items causes us to disobey I Timothy 6:9 which tells us to avoid allowing foolish and hurtful lusts into our lives. Such borrowing, generally for wants and not needs, does hurt us and is foolish.

6. Such borrowing ties us down so that God cannot work through us to supply our basic needs that He desires to supply in Philippians 4:19, and that in turn damages His reputation, since the world cannot see His power demonstrated in our lives, thus they think we serve a dead or powerless God.

C. The following basic principles will greatly help you to manage your money more efficiently.

1. Don’t borrow on depreciable items. Pay as you go, and don’t buy until you can pay.

2. Don’t let your liabilities exceed your assets.

3. Spend your money on right things, primarily on food and raiment. Even on good things get the best buy for your money. Build sales resistance.

4. Don’t love money.

5. Stay away from riches without labor.

6. Always be honest and just in your business dealings.

"It Does Make a Difference What You Believe"