Following Jesus Through Every Financial Season

What's most important to you when it comes to choosing your financial advisor? Someone who's aligned with your biblical values. How about someone who will take the time to explain your options? Certified Kingdom Advisors are professionals who meet high standards in competence and integrity, and have been trained to offer biblical financial advice.

To find a Certified Kingdom Advisor in your area, visit faithfi.com and click Find a CKA. In the first century BC, Roman historian Sollust said, Prosperity tries the souls, even of the wise. Hi, I'm Rob West. Most people would choose financial prosperity despite its temptations. But what if you're living with financial adversity? Today, we'll talk about how to be wise in good times and bad. And then we'll take your calls at 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. This is Faith and Finance, biblical wisdom for your financial journey. When things are going well financially, it's tempting to take credit for your success. This can lead to sins like pride and greed. Adversity has its own set of temptations.

Self-pity, bitterness, and envy are a few typical responses to hard times. And these aren't godly attitudes either. There is a better way, of course. Christians are called to live with integrity, no matter the circumstances we face.

But how do we do that consistently? Well, according to the Bible, the key to godly living in both good times and bad is wisdom. Proverbs 1-7 says, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline. Fearing the Lord isn't about living in dread of punishment. It's about recognizing that he is God and we are not. It means living with deep reverence for his holiness, wisdom, and authority. When we choose to go our own way apart from him, it ultimately leads us down a path that brings harm and heartache. Not because God is cruel, but because we're stepping outside the life-giving boundaries he's lovingly put in place. Just as good parents set rules to protect their children, God gives us his commands not to restrict us, but to lead us into freedom, peace, and flourishing. When we understand that God's no is always rooted in his love, we begin to see that fearing him is not about being scared.

It's about growing in love, trust, and joyful obedience to the one who created us and knows what's best for us. Wisdom isn't reserved for the successful or the strong. It's available to anyone who humbly listens to God and trusts his word. Pay attention to what God says and you'll begin to receive the benefits of wisdom.

Here are a few of those. Discernment. Proverbs 2-9 says, The wise will understand what is right and just and fair.

Guidance. Proverbs 3-6 reminds us that in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your path straight. Blessing. In Proverbs 3-13 we read that, Blessed is the man who finds wisdom. Good reputation. In Proverbs 3-35, the wise inherit honor. Protection. Proverbs 16-6 says, Through the fear of the Lord, a man avoids evil.

Those are certainly desirable benefits and all available to you no matter what kind of financial state you're in. But what about those who choose to live apart from God's wisdom? Scripture refers to them as fools, not as an insult, but as a sober warning. Proverbs 12-15 says, The way of fools seems right to them, but the wise listen to advice.

In the Bible, a fool is someone who rejects God's authority and tries to define good and evil on their own. That path leads to confusion and brokenness. God's warnings are loving invitations to return to him. When we follow his wisdom in our finances and in our life, we walk a path that leads to peace, purpose, and lasting joy. So how can you follow a path of wisdom in your day-to-day financial decisions? Well, first understand how God views money and possessions. The Bible tells us that God owns everything and we're to be wise caretakers of whatever we have.

He's not really concerned about your bank balance. What matters is where your heart is. Ask the Lord to change your heart so you can follow him in this area. Second, being financially wise means living by biblical principles. For example, practice integrity in all your dealings and consider others more important than yourself. A third key to financial wisdom is contentment. When you invite God into your finances, trusting him to lead you and provide what you need, you'll begin to understand 1 Timothy 6. Godliness with contentment is great gain. So what do your financial habits and attitudes reveal about your heart?

Are they shaped by God's wisdom or the world's values? If you're committed to following Jesus with your whole heart, that devotion will naturally influence the way you manage your finances. Whether God in his wisdom has provided you with adversity or prosperity, you can be confident in God's love and provision.

You can be prepared to deal with any financial circumstances when you're focused on what's really important and that's following Jesus. All right, your calls are next. The number 800-525-7000. That's 800-525-7000. I'm Rob West and this is Faith and Finance.

We'll be right back. Are you looking for a financial professional who aligns with your biblical values? Certified Kingdom Advisors are trusted financial, legal or accounting professionals who have completed a rigorous certification program to ensure they provide biblically wise financial advice as part of their practice.

You can find a local CKA professional in your area by going to faithbuy.com and clicking find a CKA. Jesus said, where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Today, put your heart into something that makes an eternal impact.

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That's faith to 98656 or visit faithbuy.com forward slash Lebanon. Well, great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance. I'm Rob West looking forward to taking your calls and questions today. We've got lines open. We're ready for you at 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. We'd love to dive into those questions today. Whatever you have on your mind, whether it's giving, perhaps you're looking for ways to give more wisely, or maybe you want to talk about just kind of giving in light of biblical wisdom. How should we think about our giving and the motivations behind it? Maybe it's your spending plan. You find yourself really struggling to make ends meet living below your means. Let's talk about that. If it's long-term investing, we can tackle that or perhaps it's paying down some debt. Whatever you've got going on in your financial life today, you can call right now 800-525-7000. Our goal to be encouraging to you to take you into God's Word and ultimately to direct you towards seeing God as your ultimate treasure. All right, let's dive into those questions today.

We're going to begin in Spokane, Washington. Denise, we appreciate your call. How can we help? Well, thank you so much for taking my call. Can you hear me okay? Yes, ma'am.

I sure can. Thank you. My husband and I are getting older like all of us are and right now we're in a small home on 26 acre farm, about half of which is actually timber. And we're looking at if we tried to move, what would we do? And right now house prices are so high that our farm barely gets us a 40 to 60 year old house on less than a quarter of an acre. Well, yeah, so my husband's, the question is, do land prices follow house prices? If the house price bubble were to go down in the next couple of years, does land fall at the same rate or differently? Yeah, I mean, it's a great question.

Sure. And generally speaking, I would say yes, because when we talk about housing prices, a property's value is the sum of the land value and the improvement value or the building. So when people talk about home prices falling, they're usually referring to the combined market value and kind of the most commonly referred to index that measures this is what's called the Case-Shiller home price index or the median sales data.

Now, land prices clearly are influenced by location specific demand. So that might be proximity to jobs and schools or amenities. While the structure's value would be more tied toward construction costs and depreciation and maintenance, but typically during a housing downturn, both will decline although the dynamics will be different. So for example, during the 2008 financial crisis, home prices in the US dropped sharply by about 33% nationally from peak to trough. In overbuilt areas like Las Vegas or parts of Florida, land values really plummeted because the supply outstripped the demand and vacant lots lost value alongside homes. However, in the dense areas like, you know, urban areas like San Francisco and New York, land retained more relative value to the structure because of the scarcity and the long-term desirability of those locations, even as the overall property prices fell.

So, you know, here's what I would say at the end of the day is, I think generally speaking unless, you know, you have land that's in a particularly desirable place, overall we think about these two moving together, you know, up or down. The good news is home prices to your point have done well, you know, we've had average annual growth rates of, you know, over the last five years, you know, 8 to 10% a year, which has been phenomenal. The last 10 years it's been about, you know, 7 to 7.5% a year and then 20 years about 4 to 4.5%, which would be, you know, more typical. Most economists aren't expecting a significant pullback in housing prices moving forward, at least, you know, not in the near term. The consensus would be around continued growth, even though perhaps it's a slowing of the rate of increase versus any kind of contraction.

So, I know that's a lot of information. Is that helpful to you? No, that's very helpful and the fact that it doesn't look like it's going to be, there's going to be a major correction like there was in 2008, that's good to know too.

Yeah, that's exactly right. I think we're going to see a slowing, but the supply demand imbalance keeps the floor solid because the reality is there's still a shortage of homes in this country, even though some areas can get overbuilt. Again, parts of Florida, maybe some of the pandemic boom towns like Austin, but overall, we still need more homes in this country. We just don't have enough supply and that's always going to push prices up at the end of the day.

Supply and demand, economics 101, it drives markets. So, hopefully that helps you, Denise. We appreciate you checking in with us today. Call back anytime. May the Lord bless you. Hey, before we head to our next break, let me tackle a couple of emails.

We try to get to these each week and often we don't have time, so I'm going to make a couple of these a priority. Sharon writes and says, I want to put my house in a trust to protect it in case I end up in a nursing facility, but I can't afford an attorney. What do you think of using an app like Quicken Willmaker for this purpose?

You know, my general recommendation, Sharon, is to avoid using these cookie cutter apps to draw up something as important as this is. You know, there's a lot of factors to consider before you make that decision on a will or a trust and that's really where an estate attorney can come in, not only just the legal side of making sure you're in compliance with the federal and the state laws, which obviously change by state, but also that they're asking the right questions to help you get to the right tools and planning decisions based on your desires. One of the biggest is with a revocable trust. You can't change it or dissolve it once it's implemented, so it'd be much safer for you to pay for an attorney, but even with just a basic will, I would want to make sure that it's done properly.

If at the end of the day, it's going to come down to either we don't have a will or we use one of the online tools, better to have something than nothing, but if you can make a place for it in your budget, I would encourage you to get an attorney to walk alongside you. Denise writes, I'm a federal employee and I'm planning to retire within a year. My TSP is invested 70% in the C Fund, that's for a TSP employee, that stands for the Common Stock Fund, and 30% in the G Fund, G is for government securities, so think about that like a money market. Denise is saying, is this a good allocation or would it be safer to start moving more of my investments into the G Fund?

Well, here's what I would say. You can use the rule, we used to call it the rule of 100, we've now raised it to 110 just because people are living longer, but essentially, you subtract your age from 110 and that's the percentage that you would keep in the stock portion. So, for the TSP, that's probably a balance between the C, the S, and the I, C common stock, S small cap, I international. So, I'd probably have 50% of your stock allocation in the C and then split the other 50% between the S and the I, and then whatever that math came out to be, the portion that would be in fixed income would be in the F fund.

So, 110 minus your age, that's the percent that goes in stocks, the balance goes in the bonds, which for you would be the fixed income portion in that Thrift Savings Account. I hope that helps, Denise. Thanks for writing to us. By the way, if you have a question, send it along, askrob at faithfi.com.

We also have other lines open today in our final segment. We'd love to tackle your question or hear your testimony. Maybe God's been at work in your financial life, you'd like to share that with our listeners as an encouragement today.

We'd invite you to be a part of the program. The way to do that, just head to the phones and call us right now at 800-525-7000. That's 800-525-7000. By the way, if you'd like to connect with an advisor, you know, we talk often here about investment advisors, often we talk about financial planning issues. So many of these issues require a trusted financial professional, and I would go a step beyond that to say a competent financial professional who shares your values as a Christ follower. Well, that's the CKA designation, Certified Kingdom Advisor, and you can find a CKA in your city when you go to faithfi.com and click Find a Professional. That's faithfi.com.

We'll be right back. We're grateful for support from Guidestone, investing involves risk, including potential loss of principle. Carefully consider the investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses of Guidestone funds before investing.

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Check off the affordable box on your list and get back to what you really love, running your business or caring for your kids and have peace of mind while doing it. Visit chministries.org slash Faithfi to enroll today. Hey, thanks for joining us today on Faith in Finance.

I'm Rob West. We're taking your calls and questions. We've still got plenty of room for you today and we've got some lines open. So if you want to be on the program, call right now 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. By the way, before we head back to the phones, let me just say we hear from so many of you regularly and we're grateful for this. When you send your notes and you email us and you call in and you say, the Lord has used this program and we know that His Word changes lives. It's the power of the gospel.

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Faithfi.com. Just click give and thanks in advance. All right, we will go to Dixon, Illinois. Hi Gloria, go right ahead.

Thank you so much for your ministry. Thank you. My question is, I have a house that I own and I had decided a long time ago that I would put it in my name and my three daughters' names.

They're all grown and out of the house. I just been wondering that if I have done the right thing or what are the advantages or disadvantages, I just want your advice. Yeah, yeah, very good. You know, at the end of the day, I think, you know, this is really a legal question. So getting the counsel of an attorney is always good. I would just say, generally speaking, I mean, the upside of a shared ownership situation is there's no probate needed. So if it's joint tenants with right of survivorship, when you die, your share instantly passes to your daughters without going through probate.

So that's going to skip the court costs. It secures their future because they have an ownership stake now, you know, and they, you know, potentially can pitch in with some of the expenses, property taxes and maintenance, you know, or even decision making, although that depends on the arrangement. The downsides, there are several of them, Gloria. Number one is, you know, the loss of full control because you don't own the home solo any longer. So selling or refinancing or taking out a home equity loan means everybody has to be on board with it. Their problems can become yours. Now, hopefully this isn't an issue, but if someone had a debt or a lawsuit or a divorce, creditors could take or target a share of the home.

And so, you know, this is just something to consider. Also, when you die, they get a stepped up basis on your share, the value of your share. Let's say you're a one third owner, you're one third. The value of that portion would be stepped up to the market value as of the date of death, which cuts the capital gains tax if they sell. But the share you gifted them in the form of shared ownership now keeps the original basis, what you paid for it.

And so when they go to sell it, if they do, they're going to have some capital gains to pay. And then, you know, if for some reason somebody doesn't agree on something, it can create family tension. So I think those are the issues, you know, could you reverse it? You certainly could.

I would get, you know, a CPA and an attorney of involved to make sure you do that properly. But you just need to understand, you know, the, you know, what the implications are of the decisions you've made. Does that make sense?

Yes, it does. It makes a lot of sense. Okay.

All right. So if you had called me before you did it, I would have said, let's not give it to them. Now you keep ownership and let's put a transfer on death deed in place so that when you die, it, you know, it efficiently passes to them, but they get the stepped up cost basis on the whole thing. And right now you've already given them the ownership by way of a gift, I assume. So they're going to keep your original cost basis. And now you all are going to have to make joint decisions as co-owners. And so that's the, that's the complicating factor. Now, could they gift it back to you and then you turn around and put a transfer on death deed or a trust in place or a will?

Yes, I would just get some tax and legal advice before you do that with a real estate attorney and a CPA. Gloria, thanks for your call. We appreciate you calling today. Quickly to Safford, Arizona. Arnold, you'll be our final caller.

Yes, Rob. My question is on probate here in Arizona. I want to transfer my, what a bracelet I live on is an acre and a quarter. It's valued more than a hundred thousand. And then I have a free acre with water, electricity, natural gas.

I want to know as long as I transfer it, or do I wait till I get close and not to death, but can I transfer it now and leave it in one of my children's names so they avoid probate in the later future? Yeah. That's a good question. You know, I wouldn't want to weigh in on that necessarily just because that really ultimately is a legal issue.

You know, I think there is a threshold there and it does sound familiar that perhaps it's a hundred thousand for real estate equity, but these are really legal and tax matters that go beyond my expertise. I know you had a second part to your question. Let's try to quickly tackle that. Okay. Thank you.

We have time on a CD. There's places in Phoenix that offer seven and a half with a $50,000 investment. Now compared to buying stock, they charge you 2%, you know, a broker like Edward Jones, 2% to buy and 2% to sell us. So you have to make more than 4%.

I feel that that might be better than beginning to stocks with a CD tied in for six months or a year. Yeah. So did you say they're paying seven and a half, but there's a 2% fee on the buy and then another? No. No, there's no, there's no percent to buy there.

There's no fee there for that one. Okay. Okay. Got it. Is it compared to stocks that you have to pay the fee to buy stocks?

Well, not necessarily. It really depends on, you know, how you're going about buying the stocks. I mean, you could buy individual stocks with, you know, $25 commission, uh, you know, at E-Trade or something like that, or Schwab.

You could use a robo advisor, which is very low cost. I think it really comes down to your time horizon, Arnold. If you're really looking for the time horizon, you know, of less than three years, the CD is a great option. And I don't know what you're looking at at seven and a half percent, but if there's FDIC insurance on that or NCUA, I'd say take that all day long.

Apart from that, if we're talking five years plus, regardless of what's going on right now in the markets and the economy and the uncertainty, I still think that being a long-term stock and bond owner is the very best place to build wealth. As long as you've got time on your side. Thanks for your call today. Thank you to Amy, Jim, Dan, and Doreen. And we'll see you tomorrow. Faith and Finance is provided by Faith Buy and listeners like you.