Are You Buying into Busyness?

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. As if you don't have enough to do, here comes May and with it, the graduation, sports playoffs and end of school events that keep you hopping. I am Rob West. We all treasure these important life events and the memories they create. What we don't enjoy is the stress. Today we'll talk about how to avoid buying into the busyness. 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. We live in a noisy culture. We're bombarded with messages about how to live, what to think and what to buy. May seems to be one of the noisiest times of the year, especially if you've got school age youngsters. At this time of year, the pressure to fill up the schedule, buy the right stuff and meet the expectations is very high.

Here's the problem. In times of stress, we're tempted to take our eyes off the Lord and become entangled in worldly attitudes. We buy into the busyness and it becomes a way of life, not very peaceful. Colossians 2-8 warns against the futile thinking behind all this stress. See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ. Much of the hollow thinking we fall for these days is just materialistic and self-serving.

Here are a few examples of the lies we tell ourselves. The future will be secure if I accumulate a lot of possessions. My family will love me more if I buy more things and experiences for them. Everyone should get what they want.

All I need is a positive attitude and everything will work out. Being busy is the best way to love my friends and family. The Bible calls these ideas hollow and deceptive because they're lies, glorifying material possessions and selfish desires. The end result of this worldview is just more chaos and less peace. So how do we avoid being fooled by the world's noise? Well, we can focus on God's truth instead.

Here are a few examples. In John 14-6 Jesus says, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Abundant life, peace, hope and a sure future are only found in Christ. Proverbs 23-5 says, cast but a glance at riches and they are gone, for they will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle.

Possessions simply can't satisfy you. Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, according to Psalm 31. Lasting success comes from serving the Lord, not chasing after personal fulfillment. And finally, Proverbs 3-5 and 6 offers lasting reassurance. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.

In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths. When we listen to God's truth instead of the world's noise, we can put our priorities in order. We follow Christ first, allowing him to fill us with his Holy Spirit so we can love and serve the people around us without stress. Jesus knows the pressures you face, whether they're a result of money issues, relationships, a busy schedule or all of the above. Our Lord addressed the same issues with his disciples who were fussing about everything from where to go to where their next meal would come from. The point Jesus makes with them and us is that we don't ever have to fuss and worry when we follow him. Here's what he says at the end of Matthew 6.

Listen to this. So do not worry saying what shall we eat or what shall we drink or what shall we wear for the pagans run after these things and your Heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

When you find yourself overwhelmed, irritable or depressed in the midst of the May Madness, don't buy into the busyness, pause a bit and get those priorities back in order. Talk to the Lord, read his word and remind yourself of what's true. In fact, we have a brand new study that we just released that I think may reset you on the promises and priorities that God would have for us. It's called Rich Toward God. You'll find it at our website.

It's a four week study on the parable of the rich fool where Jesus deals through this parable with some powerful themes of pride and prosperity and what it looks like to live rich toward God, the uncertainty of tomorrow and even what true abundance is. Check it out today at faithfi.com. Just click shop at the top of the page. That's faithfi.com.

Just click shop. All right, we're back with your questions after this, the number 800-525-7000. I'm Rob West and this is Faith and Finance.

We'll be right back. God has entrusted his finances to you and we at Faithfi have designed our Faithfi app to help you live, give, owe and grow with that perspective. Our Faithfi app is the leading biblically based finance app. You can manage your money, get top biblical financial resources and interact with a community of like-minded believers where you can ask questions, get answers and share what you're learning. Go to faithfi.com and click the word app to get started. Frustrated by your health insurance, confused by the network restrictions and increasing premiums?

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Our team is standing by, Mr. Robert Youngblood, Dr. Youngblood, ready to take your calls today and then we'll get you on the air quickly. Here's what we want to do. We want to be an encouragement to you, a source of hope as we direct you back to God's Word, pull out the big ideas and themes so that we together can be wise and faithful stewards of God's money. It's a high calling to be a money manager for the Lord himself. That's the opportunity we have because everything belongs to him. We want to look to Scripture to say, how should we think about living our lifestyle, giving that which we give away to be generous and connect with the needs in others' lives and the heart of God, owing debt and taxes.

What about growing God's money as well on a short-term and long-term basis? We'd love to help you do that as well. Again, the number to call right now is 800-525-7000.

We always love to hear stories of how God is working in your lives as you apply these principles and as we're able to come along stewards like you and encourage you, but also connect you to other resources from time to time, whether that's a certified kingdom advisor or one of our certified Christian financial counselors. Today I'm so excited for you to hear the story of Mr. Charles from Georgia. Charles, thank you for calling today.

I understand you want to give a praise report. Is that right? Yes, sir. And I don't know if you remember my call, but I called asking for advice about whether or not I should use one of those tax services that claim they help you with that or if you owe back taxes. And for multiple, multiple years, I mean, I've always been a fatal tither and giver. I just was, in my addiction, I never pay income taxes. And so I got clean and learned the principle of giving and tithing and firstfruits and did that.

But I was just afraid to deal with the IRS and it went on and on and on for years. So I was reading the word one day in that scripture where Jesus had rendered the seasons with Caesars and gods to gods. Well, I had been doing God's card, but not Caesars, and it really convicted me. And so I decided, okay, I'll do something about it.

And I called your program and you told me, no, don't mess with any of those. And you put me in touch with a wonderful brother in the Lord, Kevin Cross, who's a certified Christian certified public accountant. And I'd like to say that I actually paid my taxes last week.

And I can't tell you, I'm just, it's probably the first time I paid money where I was actually enjoy doing it of a bill that I owed. I was just, I felt so blessed to be able to do it. And it was because of this ministry and your advice that I'm going to get back on track with the IRS and finish out the rest of my days in obedience to the word. What a blessing, Charles, I'll tell you, this is such a picture of the Lord at work. You know, he's in the restoration business, and I love that he has restored you and brought you out of that addiction. I love that you've gotten back on track in terms of just pursuing Jesus with your life. And that includes your giving and your money management and your participation in the local church and just pursuing him. But this area that was always kind of outside of that, this area of your tax burden, to be able to now know that that has been brought in line with the admonition of scripture and that you're current on your taxes. What a blessing.

And I'm so thrilled that Kevin, who's a dear friend and just loves the Lord and loves to help God's people, was able to walk alongside you, Charles. Now, are you still working on some of those back taxes years, and are you all working on a payment plan, or how are you going to handle that? We're working on a payment plan. He's going to represent me before the IRS, and I'm going to get all the back taxes taken care of.

He just got me current right now. That's great. What a blessing.

I'm happy to do it. And here's the great part, God's providing the finances. Wow. Well, I have to believe, Charles, you know, God is your provider. He said, I'll never leave you or forsake you. He said in his word, if he's going to provide for the birds of the air, how much more is he going to provide for us? And I have to believe that as you've been faithful to bring everything under the Lordship of Christ, including your money management of God's resources, that he's honoring those decisions that you're making and you're right standing before him through the shed blood of Jesus.

Charles, I am just absolutely thrilled for you, my friend. You know, we can look at the payment of taxes with Thanksgiving. And here's what I mean by that. You know, especially some people might be saying, really, how do we pay taxes with Thanksgiving? Well, we realize, I think, first and foremost, that taxes are symptomatic of income.

You don't have to pay any taxes unless you have income. Well, what does that mean? Well, that means that God has provided. And so we can look at our taxes as something we rejoice in, because it's evidence of God's provision in our lives. And then we take it a step further, we say yes, and we're being obedient, as you said, Charles, very well, that we're being obedient to Christ, because he's made it very plain we're to render unto Caesar what is Caesar and to God's what is God's. And so we're being obedient. And then thirdly, we get to celebrate that we live in a wonderful free nation under God. And I realize we have our challenges here in this country, and we need to lean into that and engage. But we can also rejoice in the fact that we have the blessing of living here. And we are afforded many privileges that others around the world who aren't free to express their religion and so much beyond that do not have.

And so we can pay our taxes with Thanksgiving. You've certainly given testimony to that today, sir. Anything you'd want to share just as we wrap up? Again, thank you. I really appreciate it. I'm so blessed that I'm able to hear and be led by the Holy Spirit that have called your program and to start this process.

I believe if I hadn't, I'd probably be in a mess or wouldn't have paid them at all again. Thank you. I really appreciate you and your ministry in helping me in aligning obedience with God. Well, I'm delighted to do it, Charles. I'm so thankful for you.

Hey, you stay on the line. I want to send you a book that's just our gift to you. It's a book called Master Your Money, and it's one of the books, Charles, that I read early in my own journey to really see God's heart in this area of finance. And it was really significant in my life. It's written by one of my mentors, Ron Blue. I think it'll be an encouragement to you now as you look to get really continue to build out your understanding of God's way of handling money.

It'll cover just a host of issues from how we think about lifestyle to budgeting to saving for the future to investing, certainly paying our taxes with integrity. So you stay on the line, Charles, we'll get your information, and I'll get Master Your Money in the mail. Okay. Thank you so much. I appreciate you. All right. God bless you, Charles.

Wow. What a testimony today. I'm just so delighted to hear how this ministry has been able to work in people's lives. It's not about us. It's what the Lord has done, and we're just grateful to be a part of His work and to encourage you to pursue Him with everything.

Because you see, folks, when we make God our ultimate treasure, everything else falls in the line. Hey, if you'd like to find a financial professional in your area, we recommend the Certified Kingdom Advisor designation. This is the only industry-accepted designation in the financial services world around biblically wise financial advice. There's more than 1,500 of these men and women across the United States, and they've met high standards and character and competence and training to bring you a biblical perspective of financial decision-making at a professional level. Plus, they've had a pastor, client reference, and annual continuing education. You'll find a CKA in your city when you head to our website, faithfi.com. That's faithfi.com. Just click Find a Professional is what it says right there at the top of the page, and you can find a list right there in your city. Check it out today, faithfi.com.

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Great to have you with us today. Faith in Finance. Hey, if you'd like to support our work, maybe you've found some value in this, you've been encouraged or you've been helped by some of the principles or advice we've been given, or you just want to help us serve people like Charles that we heard earlier, who's been impacted by the ministry to be wise and faithful stewards, we'd love to invite you to be a Faithfi monthly partner. You can learn more at faithfi.com.

Just click give. For those who are a partner at $35 a month or more, we will send you our quarterly update. You will get a pre-release of all of our new studies when they come out four times a year. Our newest study is Rich Toward God.

The next study is in the works and will be out in July. We're so excited to put it in your hands. These are the folks that have said, we're with you, we're on board. We want to be a partner. We love what you're doing. And we want to get updates on the ministry and all the newest in the way of resources from Faithfi. Well, we'd love to have you on board as a monthly partner. You can learn more, again, faithfi.com, that's faithfi.com. Just click the give button at the top of the page.

Thanks in advance. All right, let's round out the broadcast today with as many questions as we can get to. I've got room for maybe one more, 800-525-7000. Let's go to Virginia. Hi, Margaret.

Go right ahead. I listen to you all every day, and I want to thank you for connecting me to a credit union. It was just two years ago, but I have a problem now, it's probably correct, but I was looking for a life insurance policy.

I've been at it for about 40 years, 35, 40 years, but I don't understand why now, all of a sudden, I know things are changing rapidly now. Understand why, well, it's going up another $50 a month, which I probably could read that, but then they're saying I had to get paid them $385, $385, and I was looking for a CKA to try to explain to me whether I should be paying this money or am I up, and I'm pretty sure I'm up to date. I don't know whether I'm up to date or not, but I've been paying it for years, you know. Yes, yes, very good. I need someone to sit down and explain it to me if I owe them or they owe me or what's going on at this point in my life with this policy.

Very good. Well, you're exactly right. Life insurance premiums tend to increase as you age due to several factors primarily related to the increased risk and shorter time span insurers have to collect the premium. So it's the increased risk of what they call the mortality, which the primary reason it becomes expensive or more expensive as you age is the increased risk of death, of course, and so they base their pricing models on the likelihood of having to pay out the policy, which is the mortality rate, higher health risks, shorter accumulation periods.

So the insurance company often invests the premiums to offset the cost of future claims, while when they're purchased at a younger age, there's longer for these investments to grow. Conversely, if they purchased later, which doesn't sound like that's your situation, there's less time and then decreased insurability. But I think it's a great time to your point, Margaret, for you to sit with an advisor who can look at what you have, determine whether you still need a death benefit.

Is that even necessary? Have you built up some cash value in this policy, assuming its whole life that you could pull out and redeploy other places to shore up your emergency fund or invest for the future? But the biggest opportunity may be, and I'm not saying you should cancel it tomorrow, I'd want you to sit with an advisor, but you may decide, I don't need the death benefit anymore.

And the biggest benefit to you would be you could get rid of the premium altogether, which would increase your cash flow. So I think it's worth talking through all of these things and determining what's the best step to go from here. Now, I would reach out to a certified kingdom advisor there in Virginia. Fewer of our 1,500 CKs around the country are insurance specialists or professionals, but every certified kingdom advisor will have an insurance specialist who's a godly professional that they can refer you to. So I would just call and say, listen, I listened to Rob West on faith and finance. I need a godly insurance person around the area of whole life insurance. And Rob said, you could make a referral to me.

And I can pretty much guarantee they will. So that's what I would do. Margaret, are you comfortable using the internet? Not at all. Okay. With Robert and going down to the insurance company, I hadn't gotten down there to it. They said they have all of the insurances, you know. Yeah.

Well, what I can do is have one of our team members call you, find out where you're at in Virginia and give you the phone numbers of a few CKs in the area, if that would be helpful to you. Oh, that would be great. Yeah. Okay. Good. All right.

Perfect. So, Margaret, you stay on the line. One of our team members will call you later today or tomorrow.

They'll do the search for you based on your zip code and can give you the names and phone numbers of some folks for you to reach out to. May the Lord bless you, Margaret. Thank you for calling today. Let's finish up today in Leesburg, Florida.

Hi, Art. Thanks for your patience, sir. Go ahead. Sure. Rob, great to talk to you, and I hope many of my church members listen to your program. My question is, for those of us who manage finances for churches and nonprofits, your thoughts on how much should be kept in reserve on a nonprofit operation?

Yeah. I mean, I think the same applies to churches and nonprofits as it does to individuals, that we need to be maintaining reserves for the unexpected so that we've got the ability to weather just kind of the ebbs and flows of managing the business of the church. I think, you know, having no reserves is inadequate.

I think probably having more than 12 months is excessive. And so I think it's really up to the leadership of the church, probably with the lay leaders, the finance committee, to establish a rationale for the appropriate amount of reserves given just kind of where the church is. Is it in a growth mode? Is it in a kind of holding the status quo? Is it in decline? You know, what is the kind of the needs?

Are you in a building project? I mean, you've got a lot of factors there. I think probably that six months worth of expenses is probably a good number.

But you know, some folks disagree with that. There's a great article art. If you just do an Internet search for an article called Church Cash Reserves, how much is enough? It's from ECFA, ECFA, the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. And it's just a two page PDF, but they've done a really good job of just kind of helping you think through what's the right amount of reserves for us, how we should think about it in terms of adding it as a line item on our budget, you know, and then getting to a place where beyond designated funds and mortgage reserves that are required, you know, having a specific, you know, church reserve goal that's a function of a certain number of months worth of operations and how you can get there, I think is the way to do it. Does that make sense? That does. Thank you so much, Rob. Yeah, absolutely.

The author is Dan Busby and Michael Martin. It's called Church Cash Reserves. How much is enough?

You'll find it quickly on the Internet with a search and then maybe you'll serve as a great basis for a conversation in your next finance committee meeting. Thanks for your call today. We appreciate it. Hey, folks, our desire for you is that you would see God as your ultimate treasure and that money would be a tool to accomplish his purposes. Thanks to my team today, Robert Sutherland, Devin Patrick, and Robert Youngblood couldn't do it without him. For those gentlemen, I'm Rob West. This has been Faith and Finance, and we'll see you tomorrow. Bye-bye. Faith and Finance is provided by Faith Buy and listeners like you.