The Power of Pentecost

You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses to the ends of the earth.

Hi, I'm Rob West. Those were Christ's words to the apostles after his resurrection. The fulfillment of that promise began a few days later on Pentecost and continues in believers to this day. We'll explain what that has to do with your finances. Then we'll take your calls at 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. This is Faith and Finance Live, biblical wisdom for your financial journey. Christmas and Easter are Christianity's most visible holy days, so much so that our secular society has turned them into commercial events. Well, I haven't seen any Pentecost greeting cards recently, but for Christians, Pentecost is one of the most significant days in the church calendar. Two words can help us explain the importance of Pentecost for believers, power and proclamation. Today we're going to explain how the power and proclamation of Pentecost can touch every financial decision you make.

First, Pentecost is about power. After the resurrection, Jesus spent 40 days teaching his followers how to live in the kingdom of God. Then, just before he returned to heaven, Acts 1, 4-8 tells us that Christ promised the apostles they would soon be filled with God's Holy Spirit. Jesus promised believers that the Holy Spirit would fill them, not just for a moment, but always, providing them with the power to live and serve God and others in his kingdom on earth.

This power would transform their hearts and lives. Now, the second key to Pentecost is proclamation. The power of the Holy Spirit enables believers to proclaim the good news of salvation and new life in Jesus. Pentecost is the Greek name for the Jewish Feast of Harvest, and it occurs 50 days after Passover. The Bible tells us that 50 days after the resurrection, Jews from all over the Roman world, including Christ's followers, gathered in Jerusalem for this celebration. Here's what it says in Acts 2. Peter stood up to tell them about repentance and the gospel of Christ, and by the end of the day, 3,000 people believed. The church was born in power that day, and that's why we celebrate Pentecost.

So, what does all of this have to do with how you handle your money? Well, first of all, God made his church with a purpose, to proclaim Jesus everywhere and represent God's character to the world. The church is called the body of Christ, and as a member of the body, you are responsible for your Christian witness. You are not your own, it says in 1 Corinthians 6, 19 through 20, for you were bought with a price, so glorify God in your body. You see, everything you do has spiritual significance, including your financial choices.

Your godly character will show in your business decisions, spending choices, work ethic, and generosity toward others. Also, when you have a Pentecost perspective about your finances, your priorities change, from focusing on yourself to serving others. Ezekiel prophesied the words of God in chapter 36, verse 26, And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh, and give you a heart of flesh. As a believer, this is the power of God's Holy Spirit in you, a new spirit, new motivations, new thoughts, and a new love for others.

Are you plugging into that source for wisdom and peace in your financial decisions, or are you trying to manage everything in your own strength? Let me make one more observation about the power of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit is at work in his church here in the U.S. He has blessed us with resources beyond what most nations can imagine. I believe that we have the means and the responsibility to send the gospel to the whole world.

That's part of the equation, and there's no time like the present. As we approach Pentecost Sunday this year, remember its power and proclamation. Christ did not leave you to deal with life alone, but he sent his Holy Spirit to help you.

In him, believers have power to live godly lives, serving the Lord and those around us. All right, your calls are next. The number, 800-525-7000. We'll be right back. The opinions offered during this program represent the personal or professional opinions of the participants given for informational purposes only.

Any information provided is not intended to replace advice from a financial, medical, legal, or other professional who understands your specific situation. I'm so thankful to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West. All right, it's time to take your calls and questions today. The number to call with lines open is 800-525-7000. Our call screener is Lynn today.

She'll take good care of you again. 800-525-7000. You can call right now. In the news today, some interesting new data on credit cards just came out. It shows that about a third of all credit card holders were delinquent in payments in 2023.

That's according to the New York Federal Reserve. Now, nearly one out of five cardholders maxed out their cards in the first quarter of 2024. That's defined as using 90% or more of their available credit. By the way, that's also going to dramatically reduce your credit score if you're above 30%. And let me mention a side note here with regard to that 30% credit utilization number where when you exceed that, it starts to pull your credit score down. That also applies to those of you who charge up your balance every month for budgeted expenses and pay it off.

Because here's what happens. If you pay it based on the due date, you're paying it after the cycle closes. So the balance that's being reported to the bureau is the balance on the account at the end of the cycle. So if you charge it up with budgeted expenses, the cycle ends, you've got your high balance for the month, that's reported to the bureau, then you come and pay it off, you pay no interest.

But that payoff that you've done is not reflected in what's reported to the bureau. So here's the only place that matters is if that charging up during the month for your budgeted expenses causes that balance to exceed 30% of your limit, it's actually going to be reported to the bureau that you're above that threshold, that's going to start to pull your score down. The only way around that would be to pay off that balance at or prior to the end of the cycle, which would be in effect paying it early.

So you just may want to look at that. Now, if what you're charging is still well below your limit, and more specifically 30% or less of your limit, then you're fine. You could continue paying it by the due date, but you may just want to take a look at that. All right, total household debt rose to 184 billion in the first quarter alone, that's up 1.1% to 17.7 trillion. Now, for all of this, analysts are saying that inflation of course is a major cause for the spike in personal debt. By the way, if you are relying on credit to meet your monthly expenses, that's not sustainable. Eventually you'll run out of available credit, then you'll have that uphill battle of paying off that debt. We call that debt mountain, you know, they're going to entice you in with kind of the idea that while you deserve this credit and congratulations, you earn this. I'm seeing that play out right now with my son who's just finished his freshman year of college. I think almost daily I get a credit card solicitation at the house with his name on it.

And the language is all around congratulations. And they're trying to get him into the system where he's starting to use credit, believing that that's just the way you pay for things. And believe me, I'm not against using credit cards if it's used for budgeted items, very convenient. There's actually some advantages there. But the idea is they pull you in, they start incrementally increasing that limit.

So you charge more. At first, they're just getting the merchant rebate. But eventually, if you start carrying a balance as they move that limit up, well, now they're earning the rebate plus the interest. And then maybe you're late every now and then. And now they're getting the late fees. And then eventually, maybe they drop the limit because you were late, and they can do that. Now you're over limit, and they're really making money.

So just be careful there. We need to especially educate our kids just about the challenges associated with being enticed into the use of credit in a way that is not healthy. Now, if you haven't downloaded the new FaithFi app, FaithFi 4.0, which came out this week with a brand new refreshed interface, it's beautiful, new features, new reports, all kinds of our most requested features from users are in FaithFi 4.0. It can help you set up that budget in a way that allows you to live on less than you make so you can avoid debt and put something in the bank for emergencies, especially if you use the envelope system, which is going to allow you to connect to your checking and savings and credit card accounts download transactions automatically build out that plan and each of your envelopes into those envelopes in the app as your income comes in. And then at any point in the month, you can look at where you stand. So Julie and I last night were talking about a fall trip with our kids during fall break. Well, we were thinking about a trip away. So we pulled out the app, looked at what we had in our vacation envelope. That was a key piece of information that we needed to determine what that looked like in light of our overall vacation budget for the year. Well, that's the kind of decisions that you can make when you have that information at your fingertips.

You can download it in your app store, search for FaithFi, or just go to our website, faithfi.com. Let me also mention, if you have credit card debt, my preferred way is debt management. Our friend at christiancreditcounselors.org can help you pay that off 80% faster because they'll get the interest rates down.

You'll make one level monthly payment. I think it's the best way to go. And in doing that, the best part is you'll establish the disciplines that I hope will help you never get in that situation again. All right. Hopefully that's helpful to you as we get started here today. Let's head to the phones. By the way, we have some lines open. You can call right now. 800-525-7000 to Philadelphia. Hi, Susan.

How can I help? Hey, Susan. Hi, this is Susan. I shouldn't that my husband, um, husband and I have is we'd like to consider paying off the mortgage. Mortgage rate is considerably, um, less than what we could get with, um, keeping money invested in CDs. And the other part to that is with digital currency all over the country, is it coming to United States and do we have to worry about the government taking our home? Sure. Um, so a couple of thoughts. Number one is I always love the idea of you paying off your house.

I think that's a good thing. Can you right now with a near risk free investment, I say near risk free cause nothing's risk free though with a near risk free investment in a CD that's backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government. Is it possible if you have one of those low interest rate mortgages to earn more than you're paying on your mortgage?

Yeah, sure. You could get a 5% CD today. Maybe you're paying 3% so you've got 2% net.

Keep in mind you are going to pay taxes on the interest so you're not totally saving 2% but you could do better. The challenge is that's temporary. We know that those rates are going to start to come down in the next year and so eventually you're not going to be able to do that. You are going to have to take risk.

And so, you know, I think ultimately this is a conviction issue. You need to pray it through. Even if on paper you can do a little bit better in a CD, you could do maybe a little bit more in stocks and bonds if you're willing to take on the risk. If you are going to get more peace of mind or you have a conviction about being debt free, then I'd say go for it. Pay off the mortgage. If you don't have that conviction, you're comfortable hanging on to it, you've got a low interest rate mortgage, I'm okay with that right now while you're in the CDs and certainly if you want to move into stocks and bonds. I think you guys just need to think and pray through that.

But I don't think you'll ever look back if you pay it off. With regard to the digital currency, there's nothing that's happening anytime soon. We're in a research phase right now. Here's where it comes down. The executive branch, the treasury, neither of those have the authority to put a digital currency in place. It would take an act of Congress.

Congress is deeply divided on it for good reason because it would violate our privacies or have the potential to with regard to the treasury knowing about every transaction and the possibility of putting social controls in place. I think it's way down the road. If it ever happens, would they be able to take your house?

No, there would be nothing in there that would allow them to take your house. Hopefully that helps you, Susan. Thanks for your call. We'll be right back.

Great to have you with us today on faith and finance live. We've got a few lines open today. We're ready for you. You can call right now, 800-525-7000. That's 800-525-7000.

Let's go to Oklahoma. Keisha, thank you for calling. How can I help you?

Thank you for taking my call. My question is, my husband and I have a couple of savings accounts that aren't really drawing any interest or anything. I just wanted to see what your recommendations would be on that.

Okay, yeah. So you've got two savings accounts. What are these earmarked for, Keisha? Just emergency funds. You know, we've had a Bank of America account for about 20 years.

We just recently moved to Oklahoma in the last three years, opened up a local account at a credit union. Okay. Yeah, I mean, account there too. Okay. And what do you have between those two accounts? How much money do you have in there roughly? Probably $18,000.

Okay. Yeah, I mean, so the benefit you have now of rethinking where that money is housed is that you could earn almost a thousand dollars over the next year on that $18,000 because you can get 5% in a high-yield FDIC insured savings account. Now, it's going to be an online bank likely. You may find a local credit union that's, you know, trying to compete for some business and willing to match it. But typically to get the higher yield savings, you're going to use an online bank and you'd go to bankrate.com.

It'd be one place. You can also go to NerdWallet and just see based on any given day what banks that are, you know, close to five star rated, they all have a rating system, offering FDIC insurance with no fees or paying the most attractive rates. And you'll see that today, you know, you can get every bit of 5%. Now, those are of course variable and move with interest rates.

And so, you know, as the Fed lowers rates, which has probably been pushed out to the fourth quarter of this year, I would guess could be the third quarter, those rates will start to come down. But there's no reason why you wouldn't want unless you all have talked about one to open one of those accounts, move that money over, get that 5% right now and link it to your checking account electronically. And then you'd, even though there's not a physical branch, you could move money back and forth fee free, you know, with two or three days through the ACH system.

So that would be the alternative. But what are your thoughts on that? I mean, I just feel like if it's growing some, we could give more and help people. So, well, I love the idea if you're growing a dollar a month, right?

Yeah. So if you can get 5% on the money, I mean, I think at the end of the day, it's kind of a stewardship issue, right? And we've got this 18,000. We're being good stewards of the fact that we have an emergency fund.

That's great. But why not get a little better return on it? And it's fairly easy to do. So what I do is head to bankrate.com or NerdWallet, find the one that you want to go with.

You can open the account in five minutes online, and then you would just transfer that money electronically in and then just let it sit there till you need it. Now, all of a sudden, you're earning some real interest. As I mentioned, I mean, you could get $900 over the next 12 months, assuming the interest rate stayed the same and it won't. But let's say it did.

I mean, that's $750 a month that you could be giving away or doing something else with. Right. Right. Great.

Thank you so much. All right, Keisha. Thanks for your call today. We appreciate it.

Let's see. Let's head to Montana. Hi, Billy.

How can we help? Hello. So quick question. My siblings and I have some farmland that we inherited when our dad passed away eight years ago. It's getting close to the sale being final. And what I'm wondering as far as the capital gains goes, is right now I'm single, just kind of a very great income.

If I am going to be married this year, I'm wondering if that added income and filing jointly next year is going to affect whether I have to pay capital gains or not. Hmm. Yeah, interesting. So this is not a property you live on currently, correct? Well, yeah, there's a farmstead that we had that surveyed off of the land.

And I plan on living on that. But I guess so I guess actually, yeah, so it will not be part of the sale. Okay, to answer your question, it'll just be farmland only sale. Okay.

Yeah. So yeah, in order to get the capital gains exclusion, you'd have to have this as your primary residence for two out of the last five years. And it doesn't sound like you'd be able to do that. So essentially, the way this works is it depends on your tax filing status for the year in which the capital gains occurred. So if the gain if the sale happens this year, and in 2025, when you file next year, when you file your 2024 return, and you had the sale in this year, and you're filing as tax filing status single, then the capital gains rate would be, you know, up to $47,026 $25, it'd be 0% capital gains and then from 47,000 to 518,000 be a 15% capital gain rate. If you're married filing jointly for 2024, if this is the year you sell it, it's the 0% up to 94,000.

And then 15% from 9451 to 583,000. So, I mean, you certainly could factor that in, I guess. I mean, I'd probably more be more inclined if the Lord is leading you all to marry and you've gone through premarital counseling and you're ready to do it. I'm not sure I'd let this be the decision maker. But that is a reality that, you know, to your question, yes, your tax filing status will drive your taxable income, which drives which rate you fall into.

Okay. So obviously half of this year will have gone by before we would be married. Even if we do marry this year, is that still an option to file separately next year, like married but file separately?

Yeah. So, you know, after marriage, basically you consider changing your withholding and then you would typically file the next year. What I would probably do is talk to a CPA about this just to figure out based on the timing when your actual filing status will change. I'm not a CPA. I'd love for you to get some professional counsel on this, especially if you're, you know, making decisions about the sale of property and capital gains. Do you all normally do your own return or do you normally do your own return? I do mine. He does have a CPA do his. Yeah.

I would just check in with his CPA and just get an understanding of when will that filing status change for the purposes of capital gain and then you'll have the information. I think that's your next step. Billy, we appreciate your call today. May the Lord bless you. We'll be right back. Hey, great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live here on Moody Radio.

I'm Rob West. Hey, before the break, we were talking to Billy. By the way, I did look this up during the break.

If you're married as of December 31st, you're considered married for tax purposes for the entire tax year, for the entire calendar year. So that might be helpful to you, Billy, just as you think about that. But that is the reality. All right. Hey, coming up in our next segment, Jerry Boyer is going to stop by. We've got a lot to talk about today. Jerry's been busy writing and he's had some an article in WNG, the World News Group about laziness and work ethic.

That'll be an interesting conversation. He's also co-authored a study that the Wall Street Journal had an editorial about related to ESG. That's environmental, social and governance proxy voting.

He was also involved in the Home Depot meeting this week with regard to their shareholder meeting. So we'll learn about all of that here just around the corner. But first, let's head back to the phones to Cleveland.

Is it Helena? Thank you for calling. Go ahead. Thanks, Rob.

I am turning 70 in October of this year and I have several IRAs and I want to know, like, do I have to cash them all in or what is the deadline to do that? Yeah, you might be referring to a required minimum distribution. Is that right? Well, that's I don't know. That's OK. Yeah. Got it. All right.

That's why that's why I'm calling, Rob. I'm looking for you to answer this. I get it. Sorry. That makes sense.

All right. So, yeah, here's the deal. That date has been pushed out. So bottom line is you don't ever have to cash out your IRA. But the IRS does say that when you reach a certain age, they want you to take a required minimum distribution. So that's going to be a function of the balance on the IRA and your life expectancy.

And they publish a table that tells you what your life expectancy is. And based on the latest law, that doesn't happen now until age 73. So you're still a few years away from having to take anything out of this IRA, regardless of whether or not you're working or you're retired.

So you won't have to consider that until you're 73. And at that point, you'll have a certain amount based on that table the IRS provides in your if you have a CPA, they could tell you exactly what that is. That amount will need to be taken out from you know, you'll total it up based on all your IRA assets and then you can pull it out of one account.

You don't have to take a little bit out of each one. You just need to meet the minimum that they tell you you have to take out. Now there are other options when that time comes, namely, a qualified charitable distribution where if you want to give that money away, like to, you know, Moody Bible Institute, for example, you could make a transfer of that amount that meets your required minimum. And you don't have to take a taxable distribution on money you don't need. But the bottom line is when you turn 70, nothing happens with regard to you having to take any money out.

You you're absolutely able to leave it right there. Now, let me ask you, do you need any of this money like to supplement your income or anything? It's so I just a friend of mine just passed away. So and, and actually, I live on Social Security. And that I live simply, Rob, you know, I live simply, because that would be like my emergency fund, right? So yeah, that's great. That was kind of a wake up, because it's like, Oh, my gosh, she just passed.

And she's only six months older than I am. And it's like, you know, so there's a tax consideration, as well, because as you know, with what least in Ohio, Social Security, you have additional income, it's like half of what you receive. So yeah, that's, that's what I'm looking at. And I don't quite frankly, I'm, I've been such a poor manager of my money. Not my thing, Rob, right.

But it's like, Oh, I got to pay attention to this, because I know that government is quite good about finding people. So yes. Now did is the Did you inherit the IRAs or no?

No, no. Okay. So these are your IRAs? Yeah, they're my IRAs.

Okay, very good. Yeah. So I think the bottom line is you absolutely can start to pull an income stream from these if you ever need it, because you're feeling, you know, like you just don't have enough just living a Social Security loan. But if you're fine meeting your obligations on your fixed income, then you can just let these IRAs continue to grow. And are you Do you have an advisor who's managing them? Are you doing that yourself?

No, what I hear in Ohio, if you make less than $50,000, then you can go to United Way, and they do the taxes for free. And the thing is, they don't give advice. Because several years ago, when COVID hit, I did have a little IRA that I needed. And I cashed, you know, and this is what she said.

Well, you know, with COVID, you can put it over three years, right? And I said, Okay, and then when she did my taxes, I said, Why didn't we just put it all in one inch? Because ma'am, I asked you, I got it. You know, yes, you did. Yes, yes. Yeah. How much is in your IRA that you have remaining? Helena?

I think it's like $7,000. Okay, got it. Yep. Yeah. So you can just leave that right there and let that just kind of sit there and be your emergency fund. There's no reason to pay the tax on it.

If you don't need the money, and the IRS isn't going to make you take it out. So I think you're in good shape. But listen, as you have questions along the way, don't hesitate to call. We appreciate you being on the program today. God bless you. Let's go to Springfield, Missouri. Hi, Aaron.

How can I help? For taking my call? I love your program. Thank you.

Um, yeah. So I have a question about a mortgage that I am not on. I just got married, well, I guess a year ago. My wife bought a house that we live in, I want to say it was June of 22. Her father co signed on the loan.

Great relations with my in-laws, they're great people. But they want to get off the loan and get me on the loan, you know, sooner rather than later, of course. My understanding is that because it's a conventional loan, it's not assumeable, it would have to be refinanced, right? Right. Sure. Okay.

My first question is, if we were to do that upfront, I think I heard on one of your recent programs, the cost to refinance is anywhere between three and 6% of the balance on the loan. Is that right? Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

But the bigger issue is probably going to be the increase in the interest rate. What is your interest rate on the current mortgage? I don't have it in front of me. But I looked at it a while ago. I want to say it's five and a half or six. Oh, okay.

All right. So it's not like it's two and a half or three. So that's not as big of a shock. But yeah, unfortunately, the only way that the mortgage company is going to let your father-in-law go off that loan because he's one more person they can collect from in the event your wife doesn't make the payment. There's no reason for them to let him off of that mortgage apart from you refinancing, which means you're going to have to pay those costs upfront.

And you're probably going to instead of a five and a half, six, you're going to be at seven and a half or so. You could check with your current mortgage company and say, listen, all we're wanting to do is take my father-in-law off. I realize you're going to have to underwrite this again, and I'm going to have to show you my income and all that. But can you help me on the fees just because I've gotten married and I'm trying to solve for this and see if they could try to help you. The interest rate is still going to go up, but they may be able to help you on the fees.

Otherwise, I would make sure you get at least three bids and perhaps check with our friends at Movement Mortgage, which you can do at movement.com slash faith and let them bid on it as well. It sounds like you have an additional question. Unfortunately, I'm up against a break, so I'm going to have to let you go. Maybe you and I can talk a little bit off the air here during this break. So stay right there, Aaron.

We'll see if we can help you. Coming up just around the corner, Jerry Boyer stops by and he's got a lot to talk about today. He's been busy writing. He's got columns in World News Group. He's been there's an editorial in The Wall Street Journal that references a study that he co-authored and more.

So that's right around the corner. Jerry is our resident economist. This is Faith and Finance Live. Don't go away. Thanks for joining us today on Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West. Hey, before we hear from our good friend Jerry Boyer, let's head back to the phones, try to sneak one more call into Palm Beach we go. Trish, thanks for calling. Go ahead. Hi, thank you for the opportunity.

I have a question regarding Titan. I moved from California to Florida and opened my medical practice. It takes a while to build up, but I am barely making it right now. I have overhead and mortgage utilities. I'm good with medical supplies, so I don't spend much money on that. So my question is, do I tithe from the growth that the practice is making or do I tithe from the net after everything is taken care of?

It's a great question, Trish. And you know, when you apply the guideline or the principle of the tithe, the idea behind the tithe, the word means a tenth and it's based on the increase, whatever that increase is. In the Bible times, that would have been a harvest increase. You're talking about a financial increase. Now, the key to this when you're running your own business is to separate your personal finances from your business finances. And I realize that's hard to do when you've got a brand new business and so forth, but even for tax purposes, I'd recommend that you keep things separate because you want to know, okay, what is truly a business expense so I can deduct all the expenses associated with that small business if you're renting a space for the practice and you've got marketing and business insurance and all those things.

And then eventually you're going to have some profit and then hopefully you get to the place where you pay yourself an income. Now, that income that you pay yourself clearly, if you want to apply the principle of the tithe, you do that on 100% of that, the first and the best that comes over. But when we're talking about your business, you wouldn't be able to tithe on the gross because depending on the business, some businesses wouldn't stay in business if they tithed on the gross. I mean, think about a grocery store. When something passes across the register, they're keeping a very small percentage of the difference between what they bought it for and what they're selling it for. If they tithed on the gross amount of the revenues as the grocery store, they wouldn't be in a business very long.

And the same is true here. Your profit or your increase as a business is what's left over after all the bills have been paid. And so what you'd probably want to do is look at that.

You know, ideally you'd have these two things separate. You'd cover all your business expenses. You'd pay yourself a monthly salary. And then at the end of the year, you'd say, how much profit do we still have in the business that I didn't pay out to myself? And then because this is your business and it's really you, if you wanted to honor the Lord with a tithe on that, you could absolutely do that.

But it would be based on the increase or the profit at the end of a period of time, not the gross receipts of the business. Now, you can't outgive God. So if you decided to do a reverse tithe like, you know, R.G. Letourneau, where he tithed 90 percent and kept 10, well, you could do that. But, you know, the principle of the tithe, the 10th, would be on the increase, if that makes sense. Yeah, I don't I'm not even making enough money to pay myself a salary, which is the ultimate goal.

I had it all going in California, but I couldn't stay in that place one more day. So I just started calls here. Could I ask you one more question quickly? Sure. Yeah.

If I bought a house in Florida, it's pay off, no mortgage. I just got engaged to someone who was Christian as well. That's incredible. That's great.

Yeah. And I want to be so the plan is to add him to the deed, even though the house is mine. What will be the tough consequences for him and what will be the general consequences of doing a quitclaim deed?

Yeah, really nothing because you're married. And so there really wouldn't be any implications there. I mean, you may want to check with your CPA just to see, you know, normally when you quitclaim deed a property to someone else, it's a gift and anything over the annual gift limit of 18000, which is the 2024 number would have to be, you know, you fill out IRS form 709 and it would come against your lifetime exclusion, which today is 13 million dollars.

That's set to come way down if that expires in 2025. But that's the way that would work and it would be considered a gift. What you'd want to ask the attorney about is because we're married, it's probably not going to even be considered a gift. You would just be able to add him because you're in your, you know, it's marital property now. But you're going to want to check with an attorney who would be the one to draft that quitclaim deed anyway to see about adding your husband to the deed. Okay, so he's not my husband yet.

He's a fiance. Okay, well, when that time comes, I mean, if you did it now, it clearly would be a gift, but I'd wait till you get married. Oh, okay. Okay. Alright, that sounds good. Alright. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. You're welcome, Trish.

Hey, do me a favor, stay on the line. I'm going to send you a gift. My friend Howard Dayton wrote the book Money and Marriage God's Way, and we'd love to send it to you. Maybe you and your fiance as you're going through your premarital counseling.

Perhaps you guys read this book together and talk about it over the next couple of months. Okay. Yeah, sounds great. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Stay right there. Our team will get your information and we'll get it right out to you. God bless you, Trish. We appreciate your call. Well, folks, before we head back to the phones here in our final segment, I think we've got Jerry with us. And Jerry, we got a lot to cover today, but excited to hear about Trish's upcoming marriage. That's great, isn't it?

Mazel tov to Trish and her fiance. And he's marrying a godly woman who's thinking about how to tithe and wrestling with those issues, right? That's an admirable thing. It's just wonderful to hear those stories. You know, as I'm waiting to talk to you, that's like almost the best part, waiting to hear the stories of people who are trying to figure out ways to honor God with everything, including their finances. Isn't that special?

Yeah, it's the best part of what I get to do every day. There's no doubt about that. All right, Jerry, we've got some ground to cover here, my friend. Let's start with Home Depot. I guess you were involved in that on behalf of a ministry that put a shareholder resolution forward, huh?

Yeah, I mean, Home Depot had a real problem. They did some training, some bias training for their employees in a particular branch, and it sort of shamed employees. You have to check your privilege. What's your privilege if you're cisgendered, if you're heterosexual, if you're a Christian?

Well, then, you know, you've got to confess to that. And it's an unearned advantage for you to be those things. Like for example, if you get December 25th off, you know, that's religious privilege. Of course, that's nonsense. Christians aren't the only ones who get December 25th off.

Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Jains, atheists, Satanists, they all get September 25th off. So there was a proposal that was brought by a pro-family ministry who owned enough shares. By the way, you only have to own $2,000 worth of a company for three years. People are shocked by that.

If you've owned $2,000 worth of a company for three years, then you have the right to put a proposal on the ballot and you speak to the board of directors, to the other shareholders, et cetera. And it was calling them out for essentially their discrimination against people with religious viewpoints, including not letting their Christian employees have an affinity group. They said having Christians have an affinity group at work would be divisive, but they have an LGBTQ affinity group. So having a gay rights group is not divisive, but having a Christian group is divisive.

Nonsense. This ministry called them out on it. It really got a debate going. So this is the authority that we have as shareholders.

Really the battle line in our culture right now is probably not mainly in politics, it's probably mainly in boardrooms. And Christians are finally starting to engage. Just starting. You know, we need more of them and there should be more ministries doing the same thing. Yeah, well, your great work, Jerry, is bringing a lot of awareness to that. And I know your team is doing a lot of research to support these efforts as well. So kudos to you.

All right, let's move along. I know you co-authored a study that was released by the Committee to Unleash Property and Wall Street Journal had an editorial about it. It relates to ESG.

Tell us about that. Yeah, so it's interesting. The major asset managers really got into this ESG investing, environmental social governance investing. It's something that was created by the United Nations. It's something that whether someone thinks it was political at the beginning, I think something created by the UN should be deemed political. But whether it was political at the beginning, it certainly became political, pushing against the use of fossil fuels, pushing the abortion agenda, pushing the Cultural Revolution, etc. Well, there's been a pushback to that, largely from middle America, a lot from Christians.

And the study that we helped do for the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, we looked at 700 asset managers. And what we found out is over the past year, they have largely decreased their support for these ESG proposals on ballots. They're backing off and starting to focus on what we think is their genuine fiduciary responsibility, which is to push shareholders first and to give them a good return on their investment, not to bring social issues into the boardroom.

The battle is not won. Largely, that's been on energy issues. We have not been making as much progress on social issues, which this report didn't cover. But, you know, we've been engaging and it has been making a difference with some of the largest asset managers in the world. You can go to pensionpolitics.com if you want to look at it. And if you use an asset manager, and most people are invested in some kind of mutual fund or ETF, look them up and see what they're doing with your vote.

You might not like it. Interesting. Well, who would have thought we would have seen a pushback against this a year or two ago when it seemed like everybody was saying this is the future of investing? But here we are. All right, let's finish today, Jerry, with the piece that you had in World Magazine about the decline in work ethic.

This is a great place to finish as we talk about a biblical worldview. Yeah, and it's partly based on the book by David Bahnsen, Work and the Meaning of Your Life, but it's also based on what's going on with the economy right now, where we have a worker shortage and we still have a worker shortage. Why do we have a worker shortage? Well, you know, a part of it is demographics. Abortion, for example, you know, has cost us 60 million people.

It's cost us lives and also economically it costs us. But in addition to that, people are starting work later in life. They're less likely to be full time and they're retiring earlier. And you've got a lot of men, young men, prime working age, whose cheap achievement in life is winning in video games, not winning in their career. And I think that until you have a pulpit that rings with the Christian work ethic, you're not going to have a culture that rings with the Christian work ethic and you're not going to have the economy working right.

Check it out in World Opinions. It's called We Need More Sermons Against Laziness. Jerry, we're going to have to leave it there. God bless you, buddy. Yeah, got to get back to work.

That's right. Faith and Finance, Lives of Partnership between Moody Radio and Faith Five. Thank you to Jim, Lynn, Tahir and Amy. We'll see you next week. Bye bye.