Redeeming Our Financial Failures

This faith and finance podcast is underwritten in part by Timothy Plan.

Good news! Since 1994, Timothy Plan has shared good news with investors and advisors by offering a family of funds that honor your faith. Learn more at TimothyPlan.com. In Romans 2-4, Paul reminds us that it's God's kindness that leads us to repentance.

Hi, I'm Rob West. What a gift that even in our failures, God invites us back with grace, not condemnation. Today, we'll talk about what that means for our financial lives. And then it's on to your calls at 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. It's the Memorial Day edition of faith and finance, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. So yes, it's Memorial Day and we're enjoying the day off like most of you probably. But we hope you'll take some time today to reflect on and appreciate the sacrifices made by the fallen heroes of our armed forces who gave the last full measure of devotion to ensure the freedoms that we have today. One of those freedoms is to earn money, accumulate wealth, and spend it as we wish. But with that freedom comes responsibility. We're to be faithful stewards of God's resources. All too often we fail in that mission. And we might be tempted to think that God doesn't concern himself with mundane things like money or how we manage it.

But nothing could be further from the truth. More than 2300 verses in God's Word show that he is keenly interested. Just like any other area of unfaithfulness, we must bring our financial sins before the Lord in repentance. And when we do, he is faithful to forgive and ready to refresh our hearts with his grace. That means we must also never think that our financial sins are too great for God to forgive. Christ's sacrifice on the cross paid for all of them.

You can be assured that when you repent of financial unfaithfulness, God will hear your prayer. You know, the story of Zacchaeus is a powerful example of what true repentance looks like, especially when it comes to money. Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector in Jericho, known for exploiting others and enriching himself at their expense. But when Jesus came to town in Luke 19, everything changed. Jesus saw him, called him by name, and chose to stay at his house. That encounter transformed Zacchaeus. He stood up and said, Look, Lord, here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor.

And if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount. His repentance wasn't just words, it showed up in his financial life. Jesus responded, Today salvation has come to this house. Zacchaeus didn't earn grace, but his repentance revealed a heart that had truly been changed. And just like him, we're invited to bring every area of our lives, including our finances, under the Lordship of Christ. When we do, we don't just find forgiveness, we find freedom. So what kinds of things might we need to repent of when it comes to money?

Well, here are a few examples. First, forgetting that everything belongs to God. We're not owners, we're stewards. Deuteronomy 8 18 reminds us, You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the power to get wealth. When we forget this, pride and misplaced security can take root. Second, acting dishonestly or unfairly in our financial dealings. Whether cutting corners, hiding the truth, or taking advantage of others, we misrepresent Christ.

Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 8 21, We aim at what is honorable, not only in the Lord's sight, but also in the sight of man. Third, withholding generosity. Proverbs 11 24 says, One gives freely, yet grows all the richer.

Another withholds what he should give, and only suffers want. Holding back, whether from the church or those in need, reveals a heart that may trust money more than God. Fourth, avoiding work or failing to engage it with diligence.

Work is not a curse, it's a calling. Proverbs 14 23 says, In all toil there is profit, but mere talk tends only to poverty. Laziness limits our ability to provide, serve others, and reflect God's design. Fifth, living beyond our means.

For many, living within their income is tough, but when overspending becomes habitual, it often leads to harmful debt. Proverbs 22 7 warns, The borrower is slave to the lender. Contentment and restraint honor God's provision. If any of these resonate with you, don't let guilt drive you into hiding.

Let it drive you to Jesus. Repentance isn't about shame, it's about restoration. God isn't looking for perfection in your finances.

He's looking for surrender. When we bring our financial failures to him, he meets us with mercy, not condemnation. And in his kindness, he invites us to walk in a new direction, one marked by wisdom, generosity, and integrity. I hope that's an encouragement to you today.

We know you have questions. If you'd like to send an email along to have it read on the air, we'd love to hear from you at askrob at faithfi.com. Thanks for joining us today, back with much more on the Memorial Day edition of Faith and Finance, right after this. For more biblical financial content and a supportive in-app community, you'll learn to steward God's resources wisely and grow in generosity.

Download the FaithFi app today from your app store or visit faithfi.com and click app. We are grateful for support from Timothy Plan. Since 1994, Timothy Plan has shared good news with investors and advisors by offering faith-honoring mutual funds and exchange-traded funds. More information is at timothyplan.com. The investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses are contained in the prospectus and summary prospectus available at timothyplan.com. Mutual funds distributed by Timothy Partners Limited and ETFs distributed by Foresight Funds Services, LLC.

Investing involves risks, including possible loss of principal. Thanks for joining us today on Faith and Finance. I'm Rob West. We're taking your calls and questions today. The number to call, 800-525-7000. Again, we've got lines open for you that won't last long. So if you'd like to get in on the conversation, you're welcome to do that right now, 800-525-7000 with any financial questions today. Let's see. We were going to take a call from Kent.

I don't think he could hold, but he was going to talk about, and I won't get into his specific question in case we can get him back on. He was going to talk about choosing a financial advisor and specifically, do I need an advisor? Let me talk about the three big categories here for a moment of finding a financial advisor because we get this question a lot, and I think a lot of you would benefit by it.

First of all, Proverbs 15, 22, plans fail for the lack of counsel, but with many advisors, they succeed. So when it comes to managing money wisely, we need to have, I think, some wise counsel walking alongside us. The key is, and this is the question we get a lot, how do I know it's the right financial advisor for me? And you hear me talking a lot about the Certified Kingdom Advisor designation, CKA, and that we've got 1,800 CKAs across the country, and that you can have someone who shares your values walking alongside you, and the reason that we think that's so important, you know, when I think about really the three big categories, among others, that you'll want to talk about with your advisor as you're interviewing that person, right there at the top of the list is this category around values alignment. I want to know my advisor shares my worldview and can integrate it into his or her counsel so that I could be more confident in the advice that they give, and so that key question you would ask is what role does faith play in your financial advice? And I think their answer can help determine if the advisor truly integrates biblical truth. The goal is to find someone who doesn't just respect your values but shares them, because there's a big difference between an advisor who is a Christian and one who actively discusses financial decision making through the lens of Scripture.

Here's the reality. The Bible has a lot to say on money. The key is, does your advisor understand the counsel of Scripture that money is a good gift from God?

But it has a seduction. There's a seduction to wealth that we need to be on our guard against. Does he or she understand that everything belongs to God and therefore I am a steward with ownership, not ownership rights but stewardship responsibilities? Does he or she understand that giving breaks the grip of money over our lives and it has an implication for my heart, because when I give it aligns my heart with God's heart, and that's a really big deal. Because that can change everything about the way I handle money. Does he or she understand that, you know what, I can get concerned in times of economic uncertainty or economic loss, but ultimately God is my provider, and so therefore I can trust him.

And guess what, I can continue to hold what God has entrusted to me with an open hand. I mean these are big ideas that really are the bedrock for financial decision making, and you need to understand these things, and that's why we do this show every day, but your advisor does too, because he or she is walking alongside you, helping you make wise decisions that are informed ultimately by your values. It's not even about your financial goals, it starts with who you are in Christ and your role as a Christ follower and your role as a steward, and then how money becomes a tool, a good gift from God that's a tool to accomplish God's purposes. Well, you're not going to be able to do that fully without an advisor who understands that and can really counsel you in that way. And so I'd really consider that. Again, that question is what role does faith play in your financial advice? I'll share the other two kind of big buckets around interviewing a financial advisor throughout the rest of the broadcast, so stay tuned for that. In the meantime, let's go to Winter Haven.

Hi Debbie, go ahead. Hi, I'll try to explain this clearly. I want to know where to invest Roth IRA funds, the large account, and I have it with a private custodian. It's a checkbook LLC, so I'm the one that determines where it gets invested, and right now it's just sitting in a bank account for that LLC shrinking because of inflation. I just want to keep up with inflation.

Yes, okay. So talk to me about, so this is your money and it's put aside for your retirement. What's the time horizon on this? Give me a little bit more on that.

What do you mean time horizon? I'm 71 years old. Okay, and how much?

It's going to last for the rest of my life. Okay, got it. And how much is in this account? At least a half million. Okay, and are you pulling anything out of it right now, Debbie, or is it just growing? Well, it's just shrinking because of inflation, but no, I'm not pulling any money out. Okay, so it's in the money market account or something equivalent to that? No, it's just in a bank account. It's just shrinking. I just need to do something that's not shrinking.

I've been to financial advisors, but they haven't been any help. Yeah. Well, then you may not like my capsule because, you know, ultimately I think you need to get, you've got two options here.

Number one is, I agree with you. You know, this is money you're not having to live on right now. You've got a sizable nest egg. That's great.

What a gift from the Lord. Clearly, you've lived modestly and saved appropriately, and so now you've got this nest egg. And I think part of your stewardship responsibility, the same for me, is to manage it wisely, and that includes to grow it. And when we do that, by investing it, it provides capital to business for human flourishing.

So that's a good thing. Now, how do we do that? And that comes down to how much risk do we want to take for how much reward or return? Right now, you're sitting in what you're calling a checking account or a bank account inside a Roth IRA. And to your point, because of the effects of inflation, it's losing purchasing power every day.

And so we need to get it out of that. So the question is, how much risk do you want to take for what expected return? So you could begin to move up the risk spectrum by using CDs, brokered CDs, where instead of getting whatever you're getting right now, maybe you're earning 4%. And then we could move up a little bit from there and get U.S. treasuries. We could go up a little bit more on the risk spectrum and look at bonds, a mix of corporate and government bonds. We could even move a little more and add some stock exposure to that. But then you have to decide not only what is my time horizon risk tolerance and what investments, but I've got to decide, do I want to do that myself or do I want to delegate that responsibility to someone else who perhaps has expertise and shares my values and has a good track record, who keeps me informed and manages this based on my age and goals and objectives, but is going to give oversight to it and make sure that it's positioned properly.

And that's an ongoing thing that may change or it should change with time. That's where I would say with a half million dollars at 71, my typical response would be, let's find an advisor who you have a good rapport with, who has a good track record. You understand how he or she gets paid.

They share your values. You move this money over to an account with their management, but with your oversight, of course, and then they're kind of off to the races. But if you're not comfortable with that, you've had a bad experience or you just want to do it yourself, then I think we're back to, okay, if we're not using a bank account, what about CDs? What about bonds? What about stocks? What about precious metals?

And then you build it yourself. Does that make sense, though? Yeah, I think I need to go back to a financial advisor. I have a different financial situation than last time. Okay.

Yeah. So I would recommend, and I mentioned this a moment ago before you and I got on the phone, the Certified Kingdom Advisor designation. So these are men and women who have met an experience requirement, pastor reference, client reference. They've been trained to bring a biblical worldview, character and integrity requirements.

And there's 1800 of them across the country. So go to faithfi.com, faithfi.com, and click Find a Professional. Stay on the line. If you'd prefer not to do that, we can get somebody in touch to make that connection over the phone.

Lines are open. We've got room for you today, taking your calls and questions on anything financial. Here's our goal. Help you see God as your ultimate treasure. Apply God's wisdom to your financial decisions and choices. We'll be right back with much more after this.

Stick around. Faith in Finance is grateful for support from Sound Mind Investing. For more than 30 years, they've offered financial wisdom for living well. SMI provides step-by-step guidance for do-it-yourself investors, from those just getting started to those getting ready for retirement. More information, including a short video webinar on profit and peace of mind, no matter what's happening in the market, is available at soundmindinvesting.org. Great to have you with us today on Faith in Finance.

I'm Rob West. Hey, we've got room for you today. If you have a financial question, now's the time to call here in our final segment, 800-525-7000. Again, you can call right now, 800-525-7000.

We've got room for a few more calls, and we'll try to get to as many as we can in this segment. Let me come back for a moment, though, to what I was talking about earlier, and that is a lot of the questions we get are around, how do I find the right financial advisor for me? And I think there's kind of three big buckets of what you're looking for, among others, as you interview this prospective advisor.

The first bucket is around values alignment. I was sharing that I think your advisor sharing your worldview, understanding the heart of God and the counsel of Scripture as it relates to money, is not just a nice-to-have. I think it's critical to, in particular, money and financial decision-making. It's different than a plumber. I'd love to have a Christian plumber. He or she could act with integrity and be honest in their dealings.

Those are good things. But there's not really a whole lot in plumbing that you find in God's Word that you might be different from a secular plumber. That's just not the case with financial decision-making.

Because it's so closely connected to our hearts, because God's Word has so much to say on this topic, I think it's really essential. So that key question is, what role does faith play in your financial advice? A second one might be, what's your definition of financial success? You want to listen for whether they're looking only for returns, or considering how they might encourage your stewardship or generosity or your faithfulness. They understand money is a tool, not a goal, that can bring biblical alignment, and that brings clarity and peace of mind.

So that's the first one. The second category is really around their technical proficiency. And so this is, do they have the industry designations and the experience serving clients you like? I would ask them about certification and years of experience. So the question might be something like, tell me about clients you serve who are similar to me and how you've served them.

So without naming names, they should be able to share some stories of impact. That third category is, of course, and this is a big one, about process and compensation. So the advisor should clearly explain the ways they are compensated. So I would confidently ask, I want to be sure I'm clear on the ways you make money. Could you walk me through your fees and commissions on the ways you make money?

Can you walk me through your fees and commissions for a client like me? And not only are advisors required to disclose this, I would say excellent advisors want to make sure that you understand. And you also want to be clear on their process. So the key question there is, what's your process for creating a financial plan? They should be able to clearly outline a step-by-step approach to the timeline, the information required, any additional fees if there are any.

And so you would want to understand that. I think a fourth would be really around communication. How do you typically communicate with your clients? And do you have flexibility to communicate in a way that is most desirable for me? So do you want to have Zoom meetings or do you want to meet face-to-face?

Are you good with a quarterly rhythm or a semiannual enough? Those are the kinds of things that I think getting expectations on the table from the very beginning are going to really help to address any potential for missed expectations down the road. And so I think that's why it's really so key that you address that upfront. Hopefully that helps you, maybe gives you a roadmap for how you can explore and interview a financial advisor.

Again, if you'd like to find a CKA, Certified Kingdom Advisor, in your city who's been vetted for integrity, technical excellence, biblical worldview, just go to faithfi.com, click find a professional that's faithfi.com. All right, back to the phones we go. To Louisiana, hi Judy, go ahead. Hello. Hi, how can I serve you?

I had some questions. I'm trying to decide how to invest the money that I have. I'm 70, my husband is 75. And we made some bad, bad financial decisions in our early years, making a lot of money, didn't invest right. And then my husband ended up with prostate cancer and I ended up losing my job. So we went through a very, very difficult time. And we have like 15 grandkids.

And at this point in life, we are trying to at least get back on track. He's still going through a dilemma, but I have about, I'd say about $30,000 that I want to invest into something that if something happened, you know, maybe I will have something for my kids or just, you know, a safety net for my family. And I'm not into investing. I don't know what to do with it. But I have a little bit of money in Fidelity stocks and I put it there and I left it there. I think I have about $20,000 in there, which I don't know if I have it in, I have it in diversified funds, I think.

And just want some advice what to do at this stage in life that if something happened, I would at least have something for my grandkids. Yes, I can certainly understand that. Judy, do you have separate from this money what I call an emergency fund, which is liquid reserves?

Yes. Okay, great. Yeah, so this is it's a little challenging in the sense that, you know, when you've got $30,000 or $40,000 to invest, you kind of have to make those decisions yourself because most investment advisors are going to require a minimum of $100,000.

That's just the way their businesses are set up. So I think, you know, your options are you could use what's called a robo advisor, but you'd have to be comfortable using the internet. But the Schwab intelligent portfolios would be one. You could use another one called Betterment and they take a lot of the guesswork out because you could put that money in.

You'd answer a series of questions and then it would allocate the money based on the answers to your questions and it would use kind of the broad market indexes to determine how much to put in stocks and how much to put in bonds. So again, if you're comfortable in the internet, you could go to sound, excuse me, the Schwab intelligent portfolios. Another option would be to visit with our friends at soundmindinvesting.org.

soundmindinvesting.org. They could help you give you some recommendations on some mutual funds to put it into. But that would allow you to move the money into an account, let's say at Fidelity or Schwab, and then you could buy some really high quality, low cost mutual funds and then just kind of forget about it. Let it grow and it's going to go up and down with the market, but over time it should increase. And then you might have, you know, a nice little nest egg that you could pass on at your death. You'd want to assign beneficiaries to that account so that it's split amongst your children or grandchildren, however you want to do that. So those two options soundmindinvesting.org or the Schwab intelligent portfolios.

I think both of those could suffice for a thirty to forty thousand dollar investment and take a lot of the guesswork out of deciding which investments to choose. Judy, I hope that's helpful to you. We appreciate your call today. May the Lord bless you. Mary, I apologize we didn't get to you. Let's see if we can get you scheduled for tomorrow's broadcast.

I'd love to have you on. Well, that's going to do it for us today. I hope you found something helpful and encouraging today. But above all else, I hope you were encouraged to go back to God's word. You know, in our role in managing God's money, we always need to be reminded that God owns it all. We're stewards and money is a tool to accomplish God's purposes. So as stewards, we have to understand the heart of the master. We find that in scripture. A big thanks to my team today, Taylor, Devin and Pat. And we'll see you next time right here on Faith and Finance. Faith and Finance is provided by Faith Buy and listeners like you.