Money Issues Are Heart Issues

Have you ever stopped to ask yourself this question? How much money is enough? Most of us never really define it, and when enough is unclear, it becomes a moving target, shaping our decisions, fueling anxiety, and keeping us chasing more without ever finding rest. At FaithPhi, we believe God offers a better way. That's why we created the Faith Phi Field Guide, How Much Money is Enough, an interactive scripture-centered resource designed to help believers explore this question through biblical wisdom, guided reflection, and real-life application.

Purchase your copy at faithfi.com slash shop. That's faithfi.com slash shop. Um Money has a way of reaching places in our lives that nothing else does. It touches our fears, our desires, our relationships, and our sense of security. I am Rob West.

That's why Jesus said, where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. He knew something we often miss. Money issues are heart issues. Today we're exploring how our financial lives reveal what's happening inside us and how God invites us into freedom and trust. And then it's on to your calls at 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. This is Faith in Finance, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. Years ago, my friend and mentor Ron Blue told me a story from his time in Kenya that has shaped my entire approach to stewardship. He was sitting on a hillside with a local pastor. They were looking out over the village where the man lived, and Ron asked what he thought was a practical question.

He said, What's the greatest barrier to the spread of the gospel here? Remember, he's in Kenya. He expected to hear about money, transportation, or lack of resources, but the pastor didn't hesitate. He said, materialism. Ron was stunned.

Surely materialism was a Western issue. But the pastor went on. He said, If a man has a mud hut, he wants a stone hut. If he has a thatch roof, he wants a metal one. If he has one cow, he wants two.

Well, in that moment, Ron realized something profound. Materialism is not about how much you have, it's about what your heart longs for. Because if materialism can thrive in a mud hut every bit as easily as in an American suburb, then money is not the root problem. The heart is. Money simply exposes what's already there: our desires, our fears, our loyalties, our trust.

That's exactly what Jesus teaches here. Money isn't moral or immoral, it's a tool. But because it touches nearly every part of our life, it becomes one of the greatest indicators of what we trust, desire, and worship. When we overspend, it may reflect a longing for identity or approval. When we cling tightly to savings, it may reveal where we seek security.

When we fall into debt, it might reveal impatience or a desire to live outside of God's provision. When we resist generosity, it may reveal fear that God won't provide. In all these cases, the dollars are secondary, the heart is primary. The good news is this: God cares deeply about the state of our hearts, and He invites us to experience freedom. Freedom from fear, from comparison, from striving, from the false belief that everything depends on us.

Over years of studying scripture and walking with listeners and families through financial decisions, a few core truths have become foundational for me. First, God owns it all. Ownership determines responsibility. If everything belongs to him, then we stop clinging to money as if our lives depend on it. We begin managing it as stewards, grateful, humble, and free.

Second, God is our provider. The scriptures remind us that He feeds the birds and clothes the lilies, and we, His children, are worth far more. When we believe that, fear begins to loosen its grip. Third, money is a tool, not a treasure. It was never meant to bear the weight of our identity or security.

It was meant to serve God's purposes, meeting needs, blessing others, advancing the gospel, and reflecting the generosity of the one who gave everything for us. And fourth, our financial decisions are acts of worship. Every spending choice, every giving decision, every act of planning becomes an opportunity to honor God. When we begin asking, how can I serve you with this? Money stops being a rival and becomes a means of discipleship.

These aren't theoretical ideas. They're the truths that shape every page of my devotional, Our Ultimate Treasure: A 21-Day Journey to Faithful Stewardship. I wrote it to help you walk through these core biblical principles and see how deeply they shape your daily financial decisions. Here's my hope: that as you read it, you'll experience God's peace growing where fear once lived, contentment where comparison once thrived, and generosity where self-protection once dominated. You can grab your copy of Our Ultimate Treasure or place a bulk order for your church or small group today at faithfi.com slash shop.

That's faithfi.com/slash shop. And if you want to support the ministry with a gift of $35 a month or $400 a year, you'll become a FaithFi partner, where you'll receive each of our new studies and devotionals as they release, ministry updates every quarter, pro access to the FaithFi app, as well as a copy of our quarterly magazine Faithful Steward. Just go to faithfy.com/slash give to learn more. Folks, in the end, money will always reveal what we treasure most. And when Christ is our ultimate treasure, we experience a freedom no amount of money can offer.

Your calls are next, 800-525-7000. How much money is enough? It's a question almost all of us wrestle with, but few of us know how to answer. What if God has already given us a better way to think about enough? One that leads to contentment, freedom, and greater generosity.

Our Faith Phi field guide, How Much Money is Enough, will help you explore this important question through scripture and practical exercises. Get your copy today at faith5.com/slash shop. That's faithfi.com/slash shop. Millions of children throughout the world lack one simple item, shoes. This month, Faith Phi and Buckner Shoes for Orphaned Souls are partnering with you to provide hope to 1,000 children in need throughout the world by providing new shoes and socks, critical care, and the love of Jesus in some of the most vulnerable places.

Visit GiveShoesToday.org to learn how you can impact the lives of these children. That's GiveShoestToday.org. Uh No! Great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance. We're taking your calls and questions today.

We've got room for you, some lines open. If you've got a question, call right now, 800-525-7000. Let's go down to Florida, Martha. How can I help? Hi, thank you for having me on, and I really appreciate your show.

Learned a lot listening over the years.

Well, thank you, Martha. My question is: I inherited land in 2003 from my parents' trust. I sold some over the years, but I sold the last of it in twenty twenty five. I've I've been late on filing my taxes, which is costing me, but um I'm working on it with an accountant. Uh I was Apparently the the tax the the accountant has come up with is a lot more than I thought I would owe.

I was thinking that with my donations and The um amount that is not included because of an inheritance. Would cut the taxes way down, but it's still quite a bit So I wanted to know does the inheritance waiver applied to the amount after I sell it after I inherited it. I know there's capital gains tax based on the price it was when I got it and what it is now. But does the inheritance waiver Help me at all now?

So, have you already sold this property? Yeah.

Okay.

So it was inherited in 2003, sold in 2025. And you're talking about an inheritance disclaimer, or what's sometimes called an inheritance waiver, is that right?

Well, um I know that there's something like a cap of a million dollars on what you can inherit without having to pay tax. But does that only apply to the land itself when I inherited it? Or does it apply to what I got when I sold it twenty three years later? Yeah.

So, because you inherited this back in 2003, I mean, there's a misconception. Around, you know, if you inherit more than a certain amount, you automatically owe tax. That's not how it works, there is no federal inheritance tax. There's a federal estate tax that's due with estates of a certain size. I mean, for 2026, that's estates larger than $15 million.

But inherited real estate is not taxable to the person inheriting it, and it does receive that step-up in basis.

So, if you later sell it, which you've done, you owe the capital gains tax only on the appreciation after the date of death.

So that would be what you would have going on here, where you'd verify the cost basis. Um and and that basically is what the value was in two thousand three. And then you'd include all the selling costs and any capital improvements. And then if the property was sold, um, you know, you would uh have ultimately whatever that gain is that would be subject to capital gains tax. About fifteen percent.

Yeah, I mean, what what is the total gain that you realized for your portion?

Well, it started out being appraised at around 10,000 an acre, and it has come up to one piece sold for twenty four an acre and the other sold for thirty an acre. And there were um about twenty twenty four acres altogether.

Okay, but do you know what the total capital gain is that you realized? Um You mean the sale price? Sale price minus the cost basis. I haven't done that yet. The accountant working on that.

Yeah, so for 2025, if that's the year you sold it, last year, the long-term capital gains rates were 0%, 15 and 20%. Do you file as a single person? Yep.

Okay.

Yeah.

So, you know, if you have a total capital gain plus your ordinary income, your taxable income, the total of those two together, if it's between $48,000 and $533,000, which is where most people would fall, because again, it's the capital gain plus your income, then it's 15% on the gain.

So that's a reasonable amount, what I'm paying then. Uh, I should have played better. Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm not gonna set aside some Yeah, so have you already uh spent that money or? Allocated it somewhere.

Well, I have uh some allocated for that, but I thought my donations giving Ten percent. you know, over the years And that year would cover it somehow, I thought, but I should have paid 15% instead of 10% in donations. Yeah.

So yeah, donations made in the year of the capital gain could affect your total taxable income, assuming you itemize, but it's not a direct offset.

So, you know, if you make donations in the same year of a large capital gain, it can be effective. But again, it's going to reduce your overall tax bill by reducing your taxable income in that year, which is not a direct offset for the capital gain itself.

So, those two things are unrelated.

Now, if you gave enough, such that you reduced your taxable income to offset the gain.

Well, that may work, but you would just have to get with your CPA and see what kind of impact your contribution is going to make on your taxable income and whether you're going to owe more than you set aside in the first place.

Okay.

It's a hard pill to swallow, but the Lord will take care of it, right? He will. And there are options here. You know, you can connect or have your CPA connect with the IRS and work on a payment plan or something like that. This does come up regularly, and the IRS is ready for it.

And they're probably more accommodating than people give them credit for with these kinds of things. And so just know you're not going to have to write that chick all at once. And if you can't, there are other ways to approach it.

So thanks for your call today, Martha. All the best to you. Let's go to Florida. Richard, go ahead. Yes, I just want to know your thoughts regarding somebody who has equity in the home and maybe they're thinking about getting a home equity line of credit.

I've seen some new products called Home Equity. arrangements versus a home equity line of credit. Yeah.

Yeah, I don't like the HEA. It's a home equity agreement. And the reason is. you lose uh your home's future appreciation.

So, you know, with an HEA, if your home appreciates significantly, you're giving up a share of that appreciation, which can become much more expensive than paying interest on a loan. And the contracts are complex.

So it's important to understand what you're getting yourself into and how the payoff is calculated.

So, you know, neither is inherently good or bad. They're different tools, but I would just far prefer the home equity line of credit. Which is for someone who has good credit, sufficient income to qualify, and you have short to medium-term borrowing needs. You know, and I like them most often for home improvement, certainly not lifestyle spending. But the benefit is it's secured by your home.

You retain 100% ownership of your home's future appreciation.

So if your home value rises, which historically homes have risen in value consistently, all of that increase belongs to you. Perfect. All righty. Appreciate it. Absolutely.

Thanks for your call today. Lord bless you. 800 525 7000 is the number to call. We're taking your calls and questions today on anything financial. We're going to take a quick break here or less.

Break and then we'll be back with our final segment. We'll get to as many calls as we can. We've got room for perhaps two more questions. If you've got a financial question today, go ahead and call right now. That number 800-525-7000.

Again, that's 800-525-7000. Here's our goal in this program each day: to help you live as a wise and faithful steward, applying God's wisdom to your financial decisions, seeing God as your ultimate treasure and money a tool to accomplish God's purposes. Thanks for joining us today on Faith and Finance. A quick break and back with much more. Stay with us.

We are grateful for support from Praxis Investment Management. Since 1994, Praxis has offered investment products designed to meet practical needs for everyday investors seeking to steward their assets consistent with their desire to promote positive social and environmental impacts. Praxis aims to bring a faith-based approach to ETFs, mutual funds, multi-fund portfolio solutions, and money market accounts, reflecting their 500-year-old Anabaptist Christian faith tradition. More information is available at PraxisInvest.com. We are grateful for support from Movement Mortgage, who provides residential home loans and reverse mortgage options in all 50 states.

Guided by a mission to love and value people, Movement seeks to help individuals and families make informed financial decisions from buying a home to planning for retirement. More information is available at faithby.com/slash movement. Movement Mortgage LLC supports equal housing opportunity. NMLS number 39179. For licensing information, visit NMLSconsumerAccess.org.

Thanks for joining us today on Faith and Finance. We're taking your calls and questions. If you've got a question, we'd love to hear from you. Call right now, 800-525-7000. Again, that's 800-525-7000.

Whether you're thinking about paying down some debt, you want to give wisely, perhaps it's preparing the next steward or choosing whether a will or a trust is a better option for you. Any of those questions and more, 800-525-7000. Illinois is where we're headed next. Gwendolyn, how can I help? Hi.

I have two questions. I'm interested in knowing if there is a product you can recommend that would combine both life insurance and long term care benefits. And also, with this product, can it be combined with an investment aspect? Or would you have to buy a separate product for an investment along with an insurance. Yeah.

Great question. And, you know, having a hybrid policy can be an effective solution. That's not the right fit for everyone. Basically, you've got three approaches. You've got a traditional long-term care insurance policy, which is specifically for long-term care.

And if you ever need care, you'll receive the benefit as long as you qualify based on a certain number of what's called activities of daily living that you cannot function or perform. And then the second option is life insurance with a long-term care rider, which is what you're talking about. That's a hybrid policy.

So if you need the long-term care, you get part of the death benefit to help pay for those expenses. And if you, you know, ever, if you never need it, your beneficiaries receive the life insurance death benefit.

So, you know, this addresses the concern of use it or lose it. And then there's, you know, other types of asset-based policies as well, if you're not going to self-fund. And ultimately, it comes down to your overall health and insurability and whether you have enough assets to self-insure. But the hybrid policy can be a very effective tool. As long as you need the true life insurance alongside it, let's go back to when you'd want straight long-term care insurance or versus a hybrid policy, life insurance plus a long-term care insurance rider.

And keep in mind, before we even get to that, you know, 70% of Americans 65 and older will need long-term care for some period of time, usually two to three years. And full nursing care is expensive. It can run $100,000 a year or more. And so if there's a risk, an unknown risk that you want to mitigate in this season of life that could erode your assets, the need for expensive and ongoing long-term care is probably up near the top of the list, if not at the top of the list. But these policies are expensive.

They have increases, and you know, a lot of people just struggle to pay for them. And a lot of people struggle with the use it or lose it. Meaning, wait a minute, if I pay all this money in and I never need it, I don't get anything for it.

Well, that's right. Kind of like your car insurance, if you don't have a rec or your term life insurance, if you don't pass away, you're offsetting the risk.

Now, who would be best suited for a traditional kind of straight long-term care insurance product?

Well, that'd be someone whose primary concern is paying for the future long-term care expenses they may have. And you want the most long-term care coverage per premium dollar. Because you're not adding any other features in, and you know, you have sufficient retirement assets. But typically, this is someone who wants to protect them from the high cost of extended care. Meaning, yeah, we can reasonably see how we can fund our lifestyle for the rest of our lives based on what we've saved.

But we know there is this chance that if we needed extended care and it was expensive, that that could be a problem. And so, therefore, we're going to add this long-term care insurance policy. It's less ideal if you don't like the idea that you may never use the policy and therefore the money is quote unquote lost. Or you have difficulty qualifying medically.

Now, who would want a hybrid life insurance plus long-term care?

Well, that's the person that says, I don't want to pay premiums and get nothing back if I don't need care. Those who have need for permanent life insurance, who is that?

Well, that'd be a parent of a child with special needs that needs lifelong financial support, a business owner who needs funding for a buy-sell agreement, people with significant estates, a lifelong dependent. high income earners who've already maximized Other tax advantage savings like 401ks or IRAs. Otherwise, most people don't need permanent life insurance. That's why we recommend generally that you just buy term insurance while you're working, save in your 401k, and then you drop the insurance when you get to retirement. And again, if you have sufficient retirement assets, but you're worried about expensive long-term care, you'd add a straight long-term care insurance policy at that point.

All right, now the final piece, Gwendolyn, was what about an investment component? Yes, some permanent life insurance policies like index universal life IULs and variable universal life VULs can accumulate cash value and could have a long-term care insurance rider.

However, I generally don't recommend buying life insurance as an investment.

Now, I've thrown a lot at you there. Is that helpful? Wow, yes.

So you don't recommend the index. People go with that idea, Index Universal Life, because it's something sitting there that earnings But can be used. Yeah.

If need be, and then pays back into if there's a need to borrow against it. Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, a lot of people will say that's the you know, the benefit is you've got the permanent life insurance if it's properly funded, the tax-deferred cash value growth, you've got the downside protection. And you can access through policy loans, if it's structured properly, tax-free access to cash. But they're complex, they're expensive, the growth is capped, which is where most of the long-term annualized growth of an investment portfolio comes in the strong up years. But you don't get that in these products because you have to give that to the insurance company once you get above the cap. If the policy is underfunded because rising insurance costs later in life reduce the cash value or cause it to lapse.

So there's just a lot of qualifiers there. And at the end of the day, I just find that for most people, it's not the best solution. Oh, okay.

So just continue to invest in an IRO or some a Roth IRO, a traditional Ayro. And by term. And then once you get to be 65, though, you know, your term insurance starts to increase with every ring of age. But you don't need it at that point because you've got the retirement assets.

So therefore, there is no risk because no one's depending upon you for your income at that point.

So that insurance is no longer necessary. It's kind of like if you sold your car, you wouldn't need car insurance.

Well, if you stop working, you don't need insurance to cover the risk of the loss of income. And at that point, your only risk is, or a risk is the primary one, is the need for extended long-term care. And again, if you can afford it, that's where a long-term care insurance policy can be helpful.

So, hopefully, this has given you a few things to think about, Gwendolyn. Thanks for your call today. Well, a big thanks to my team today. I certainly couldn't do this without them. Producer Devin, we're grateful for Devin's great work.

Sandy handling our phones today. Taylor Stanrich providing great research and helping me navigate the program today. And everybody here at Faith Phi that allows us to bring you this ministry every day. If you'd like to become a partner of ours, those are God's people who come alongside us monthly. You can do that at faithfi.com.

Just click give and have a great day and come back and join us next week. Faith in Finance is provided by Faith Buy and listeners like you.