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Hi, I'm Rob West. As you make decisions about where to do some year-end giving, or if you will, it's good to understand the power of giving. Randy Alcorn joins us today with some advice to help you give just a bit more. And then it's on to your calls and questions at 800-525-7000.
That's 800-525-7000. This is faith and finance, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. Well, we're delighted to have Randy Alcorn back on the program today. He's the author of over 60 books on Christian living and the founder and director of Eternal Perspective Ministries. Randy, it's a delight to have you with us. Thanks.
Great to be with you, Rob. Well, as you know, Randy, we're talking about 11 guidelines for giving that you've identified in the New Testament that can really help us break the power of materialism. You've taught for many years, and I know Ron Blue has as well, that giving breaks the grip of money over our lives.
So, let's start there. Why do you think materialism is such a challenge for us, especially here in America? Well, it's identified by Jesus as a god, a false god, an idol, mammon, you know, and that's in most translations capitalized, and rightly it should be because it's like Baal or, you know, Molech, or, you know, it's a false god. But in our culture, we don't think of ourselves as idolaters, of course, and yet we're told that greed is idolatry. And this is, it takes hold of our lives. And I think what happens is we keep accumulating possessions, and we live, and we're grateful to live in a prosperous culture.
But what happens is we keep accumulating, and things have mass, mass exerts gravity, gravity holds us in orbit around it, and pretty soon we're in orbit around our stuff, our things, our accounts, whatever it might be. And without realizing it, even Christians who desire to honor God in the way they live are just sucked into kind of the black hole of materialism. That's well said, Randy, and you're exactly right. I think then it's important, even before we get into these guidelines, to recenter ourselves on a biblical worldview of money.
You actually give some preconditions to these guidelines. Why don't we start there? Well, certainly we need to see ourselves as stewards, and this is the thing.
I was actually speaking years ago, I was about to speak at a Kingdom Advisors Conference, and of course, I love you guys, and I love that ministry and Ron and everybody else. But somebody came up to me and said, now, please don't tell us again God owns it all, because we've heard that, and everybody says it, and we've all heard it, and I go, well, here's the deal. When we all start living that way, I think we'll just never say it again. Right.
Because it's like, yeah, it's like I'm a tennis coach, a high school tennis coach, and I may say things like, you know, follow through, keep your eye on the ball. Well, you know, those things would be unnecessary, except they're vitally necessary, and this is where we are. I mean, so let's see ourselves as stewards, God as the owner, and then just realize he has entrusted money and possessions to us in order that, yes, we would use them to live, but also use them to give. And Jesus said it is more happy making to give than to receive.
Acts 2035, I've written several books on happiness, and I guarantee you that Greek word makarios, which I've studied extensively, was the common word for happiness. And when we hear the word blessed, I think blessed has become to most of us more of a holiness word than a happiness word, and I think we just need to get back to what the word actually means. It is more happy making to give than to receive.
Oh, wow, that's powerful. I love that because it's the same word, but it's a completely different idea in our minds, and I think it does ultimately lead to the joy that Jesus was speaking about when he was telling us that we should be givers, because there's so much more that comes back to us when we give. It's not what he wants from us, it's what he wants for us, and so that's why I think this is such a critical topic. Well, Randy, when we come back from this break, I can't wait to dive into these guidelines about what does it look like to give in alignment with the New Testament so we can take the Council of Scripture and apply it to this really vital area of our money management.
Randy Alcorn here today. Much more to come just around the corner on faith and finance. I'm Rob West, and we'll be right back. As 2023 comes to a close, we are thankful for the generous and faithful supporters of Faith By who believe in the message of financial faithfulness found in God's Word.
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That web address is investments.oneascent.com. It's great to have you with us today on faith and finance. With me, my guest today, Randy Alcorn, is the author of over 60 books on Christian living. Randy, I think I've shared this with you before, but apart from God's Word, Money, Possessions, and Eternity, your book had a profound impact on me in college that really ultimately led to me pursuing the intersection of faith and finance that I've spent the rest of my professional career at. I'm just so grateful to you and all the extensive writing you've done on this topic.
Well, thanks for saying that, Rob. Absolutely. We're talking today about a key area of our money management. You said it well. God owns it all. We're stewards, and now money is a tool. When we look at Scripture, what kind of leaps off the page is that it's a generosity story. For God so loved the world, He gave His one and only Son, and if we're created in His image, then we're most like Him when we're giving. So what should that look like?
What are those guidelines? And the first one is you tell us pretty plainly that you just simply need to give, right? That's right. And you know, when we do things, they become a habit. If you teach your children to say thanks, the chances that they will become thankful people is greatly increased. The very verbalizing of the thing, the doing of a thing, saying thanks, cultivates thankfulness.
It makes perfect sense. And what cultivates generosity? Giving.
You simply do it. And if you don't do it, you won't cultivate generosity. You will never become a generous person as long as you're waiting to give. And sometimes people will say, God loves a cheerful giver. Well, I'm not cheerful about it, so I'm going to wait until I'm cheerful and then I'll start giving.
Well, don't hold your breath because it's not going to happen. You know, you have to give and then discover the blessings of generosity. Not only the contentment that comes with obeying God, but also the happiness that comes, as we said, for Jesus' sake. It's more happy-making to give than to receive.
Yeah, that's so helpful. Well, that takes us to the next one, which is to give generously. What does that look like for us? Well, I think everybody has to evaluate, you know, how much are you giving now? And if you are giving 50% of your income away now, which some people do, and some people are at a place where they can give 90% of their assets away, well then, for you, you don't want to go backwards.
You want to go forwards. And if God opens the door and keeps blessing you and more comes in, then give all the more. For other people, they've never tithed. The idea of tithing is unthinkable to them. I've had long conversations.
I know you have, too, with people. And what I always say is the tithe is not a pinnacle. It's just a starting place. That's all it is. And God called upon his poorest people in Israel, farmers and everybody else that we would consider even lower class in terms of income, and had three different tithes for them, but one in particular that would be parallel to what we have in the church, which is supporting your pastors.
The work of your church, missions and all that. And then give above and beyond that. But I would say to people who haven't tried it yet, this is not legalism. If you don't want to start at 10%, that's perfectly fine.
Start at 11% or 12%. Whatever you want to do, just do it. It's not legalism. It's just simply saying, well, if this is what God expected of his poorest Old Testament saints, and I'm indwelt by the Spirit of God, and I live in the wealthiest country in human history, it would seem that I probably don't want to start below where they were. Yeah, that certainly makes sense. And it leads us to this next point, and that is to give regularly.
What is it about systematic giving that's so important? Well, I think when we're in the habit of it. I mean, you think of the things in life that you do. I'm an insulin-dependent diabetic, so I have to check myself. I have to actually look at my phone, see what my blood sugar is before I start an interview, because by the end of the interview, I don't want to be making no sense whatsoever. I mean, that will happen to me if I don't examine myself. The regularity of checking my blood sugar is huge.
The regularity of brushing your teeth, the regularity of showering or shaving or whatever it is just cultivates the thing itself. So, if you give regularly, you'll have an eye for giving, and that regularly may be once a month at your church, and I know a lot of people have the automatic, you know, taking it out of your account and that sort of thing. I do think there's a little bit of a danger in that, because you can kind of become less conscious of the fact that you're actually giving, but in any case, then your eyes are open. When I walk into a store, my eyes are usually alert to somebody that looks a little bit needy. There have been a number of times where I've offered to buy something for somebody, whether it's a water bottle or whether it's a little something to eat.
And just cultivate it. The more you give, the more you're aware of giving. And remember, grace, God's grace toward us is giving. Grace means giving. So, the grace of God toward us, which is like lightning, is supposed to produce thunder in us, and that thunder is the thunder of our giving back to Him and to others. Oh, wow.
That's so helpful. All right, Randy, the next guideline is to give sacrificially. This, of course, models the most famous giver in the New Testament. We don't know her name, but we know she was a widow that gave out of her poverty, right? Exactly. So, she has this coin or two little coins or whatever that she puts in to the offering, and Jesus is watching her and uses her as a model for the disciples.
And He's not using wealthy people as the model. But He, knowing everything, says she has given all that she has, and He knows that God's special blessing will be attached to this great act of generosity. And so, she is in Scripture itself.
That's like the Hall of Fame. When you make it into Scripture, for good reasons, there's other reasons people make it into Scripture that are not so good. But in her case, it's like, wow, she's the model of giving. And by the way, the model of church giving is in 2 Corinthians 8, when you have the northern Greece and southern Greece, Macedonia, Nicaea, and you have the model of the Macedonian saints who gave out of their poverty to the famine relief offering in Jerusalem.
And they are the most famously noted church for their giving, and it says they were actually living in poverty when they did that giving. Yes. Oh, it's so good. Unfortunately, we've only got about 45 seconds left. Randy finished with this guideline of giving worshipfully.
What does that look like? Yeah, I think when we think of who God is, and then, in contrast, who we are, we just need to focus on His grace and the fact that to become like Him, to be godly, to become Christ-like, is to give as He gives. And the more we give, as long as it's from a right heart, not showiness, but worship of Him, we will become more like Him the more we give.
Wow, that's powerful. Well, Randy, we're going to have to have you back because there's so much more I want to talk about, but I'm so thankful for you and your ministry, your friendship, and thanks for being here today as well. You bet. Great to be with you, Rob.
All right. That's Randy Alcorn. He's founder and director of Eternal Perspective Ministries. You can check out their excellent work in sharing the gospel and expanding God's kingdom, including a lot of writing on money and possessions in light of biblical wisdom at EPM.org.
That's EPM.org. All right, back with your questions just after this, the number, 800-525-7000. This is faith and finance, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. We'll be right back.
We'll be right back. We are grateful for support from Soundmind Investing in the faith and finance program. If you have money in a retirement account or just a general investing account, you know the stock market can sometimes seem like a roller coaster, but it is possible to enjoy both profit and peace of mind in investing, no matter what's happening in the market. You can see a short video webinar on that topic at soundmindinvesting.org. Since 1990, Soundmind Investing has sought to offer financial wisdom for living well. Soundmindinvesting.org. Welcome back to faith and finance. I'm Rob West.
This is the program where the 2300 verses on money and possessions found in God's word intersect with today's financial decisions and choices. The number to get in on the conversation, 800-525-7000. That's 800-525-7000. All right, back to the phones. Let's round out the program with as many calls as we can get to to northern Michigan. Josh, thanks for your patience. Go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for taking my call. My question, you know, revolves around our finances, obviously, but my wife and I have a single income home by choice. So I work and she works in homeschools and does probably more than I do.
And she draws in a modest income, a very minor one coordinating some homeschooling activities for a group of individuals. But at the end of the day, we're our credit card balance goes up, goes down. And just in the end of the day, I mean, at the end of the year, we generally get caught up and squirt away. But in the end of the day, it just seems like my income is a little bit short.
And so my question, you know, comes along. We have my parents give occasional modest gifts. My wife has proposed that we use that maybe as a small, if you will, allowance for her just so she doesn't have to feel stressed about how I get for finances. And for me, it's a little bit, it's hard, I guess it's a little bit hard to, I'm trying to operate, you know, within our income specifically. But for some of those things that come up that she wants to do, you know, nothing major. But for some of those things she wants to do that, again, just a gift for someone or take someone out to coffee, I'd like to be able to do that for her. But yeah, I'm conflicted as far as the budget part when at the end of the year, we're always a little bit behind. So I'm kind of curious what other people's input is, whether we would use a little bit of that gift money for something like that. So I'm seeking opinions.
Well, that's really helpful, Josh. And I certainly understand what you're saying. And it seems like, you know, at the end of the day, there's always something that comes out of left field. Do you all have a budget? I mean, have you taken time to truly capture not only the things that happen on a monthly basis that are regular and recurring, but those things that happen outside of the recurring expenses that, you know, as you look over 12 months, or you look at the typical month, you say, you know, if we were really trying to capture everything, this is what the budget would look like. And we'd be putting money away, you know, in into savings in months where, you know, we didn't have one of our quarterly, you know, insurance bills, so that when it comes, we've got the money there.
And we actually build in a, you know, coffee, you know, with mom category where, you know, she can, you know, take a friend out, and there's money in there, and it's planned. I mean, to the best of your ability, have you tried to capture all of that? We have not done a hard and fast budget, no. I mean, I have a pretty good idea of things, but not a hard and fast budget, no. I think that's maybe the next step, Josh, is for you guys to take a harder look at it, just to say, okay, if we put everything in, where would we come out? And what you may find is that you're upside down $300 a month or something, and then at least you've got the information so you can say, okay, now, in light of our values and priorities, what do we want this budget to look like? You know, if money tells a story about what's most important to us and her ability to go invest in a friend and, you know, be able to take them to coffee and, you know, pour into her another friend's life or just be there in a time of need, I mean, that's really important to you all.
That's great. What are we going to cut back on over here? And maybe we need to make some sacrifices and maybe the eating out budget gets trimmed a little bit or maybe we cut one of those subscriptions or, you know, maybe we cut back in another area, but at least you'd have the information in front of you so that you can be as realistic as possible as to what it actually costs you all to be able to live the lifestyle you believe God has called you to, and then you can make some informed decisions together. Does that make sense?
It does. I mean, and I get the budget part, it really do. I really, my concern is we really, there's not much trimming to be done. I mean, we go out infrequently, we have maybe one cell phone bill that we pay, we need to pay for. I mean, so our expenses are pretty trimmed back.
Yeah, yeah, no, I get it. And what did you say this gift was that comes regularly? I mean, my parents give gifts. Yeah, so they're just gifts of amounts, you know, no particular strings attached typically go to our savings account long term, but we don't have, we don't earmark for anything. Yeah, so they're just Okay.
And are you saving as a part of your regularly scheduled, you know, budget and salary deferral into a retirement plan? Indeed, yes. Okay. So you're on track there.
Yeah. I mean, that sounds like, I mean, obviously you can't count on it, but as long as you guys were willing to be flexible, I mean, perhaps that's what you do. And once your emergency fund is funded, and once you feel like you're on track with your retirement savings, if you've got additional income sources that come along the way, being able to take that and sock it away in a savings account that has a name on it, you know, that you know what it's for. And maybe it's for just what you said some of those extra things that you and she would like to be able to do, but it just it's not in the budget. You know, I think that's a great use of that money.
And I don't think there's any reason why you couldn't be even more intentional about that. Hey, check out the FaithFi app. It may be a great tool and help you in some of this. I hope what I shared has been helpful to you. God bless you, Josh. Let's head to New Jersey. Renee, thank you for calling.
Go ahead. This is regarding a quotation that I received for long term care from an insurance company. So I have three different amount. The first one, I mean, the thing is, I find that the monthly premium, for example, the first one 623 is kind of too high for my budget. This one, of course, has five percent compound, 20 year inflation protection.
And then there's a middle one, middle range and then the other range with no inflation at all. But I just wanted to let you know that there's a maximum monthly benefit amount of not more than six thousand. And the policy limit is for three years with a max amount of two hundred and sixteen thousand.
So I just wanted to have your opinion on this. No inflation, but within my budget. Well, all things being equal, Renee, and I understand your dilemma, I'd love for you to have inflation protection, because especially in health care, that's going to be a reality.
And yet it doesn't matter how good the policy is. If you can't sustain it into the future because it doesn't fit in your budget, then it doesn't matter what kind of benefits you have, because when you need it, it's not going to be there because you're going to have to drop it. So I would say, you know, having an independent agent look at this and give you their opinion is key. But I think just based on what you've shared, having something, you know, for three years up to two hundred thousand, six thousand a month is a great start to making sure you're protected in this area of your life. Hey, we're almost out of time, but I wanted to let you know that you don't ever have to miss a program. Just download our Faithfi app for your mobile device and take us with you anywhere. Thanks for joining us today. I look forward to talking with you again next time on Faith and Finance. Faith and Finance is provided by Faithfi and listeners like you.
