Many people are using the FaithFi app to help provide the wisdom, community, and money management to stay on track, financially speaking. To date, over 37,000 members are using its digital envelope system, participating in our community forums, and engaging in virtual workshops. And one of the most convenient features is the ability to keep all your accounts in one place for an easy-at-a-glance view. You can choose from one of three options, depending on your management style, and it's available on desktop or mobile.
Go to faithfi.com and click App to get started. Are you rich? You might not think so, but compared to most of the world, you're probably quite wealthy. Hi, I'm Rob West.
Just having clean water, food, and shelter sets us apart from much of the world's population. The question is, what are we doing with this wealth? I'll talk with Ken Boa and Russ Crossan about that today. Then it's on to your calls at 800-525-7000.
That's 800-525-7000. This is Faith and Finance, biblical wisdom for your financial journey. Well, I can't tell you how excited I am to have Ken Boa and Russ Crossan on the program today.
They've been good friends for a long time. Ken is a pastor. He's the founder of Reflections Ministries.
Russ is the executive vice president and chief mission officer of Ronald Blue Trust. And Ken and Russ, great to have you on the program today. Rob, good to be with you.
Good to be with you. Well, you guys have written this phenomenal new book titled Leverage, Using Temporal Wealth for Eternal Gain. And we're starting today, as you guys know, a three-part series discussing what you've unpacked in this book. I should tell listeners that they can get a copy of Leverage with a gift of any amount to Faithfi. Just go to our website, faithfi.com, and click the Give tab. Now, to start, Ken and Russ, I'm curious, I'd love to know, and maybe Russ you can kick us off, what made the two of you decide to collaborate on this book on giving?
Well, thanks for asking. I'm kind of laughing here because Ken had sent me a proposed outline for a giving book he was considering doing. And as is in Ken fashion, he's so wise and so knowledgeable, he had like seven steps and seven processes. And he had some things in there about foundations and about ceilings and things like that.
And I said, hey, Ken, that's kind of my area. So I was bold enough to send him a suggested different outline, and we kind of collaborated with him on the principal side and me on the practical side. And I think, like Ken likes to say, a theologian and a practitioner was kind of a unique way to go about this. So Ken, thanks for letting me interrupt your thought process there when you sent that to me about two and a half years ago. This was a remarkable time that we had putting that together because I did the part on principles of biblical leverage, and then Russ would do the practices. Let those do most what they do best.
Yes. Well, you've come up with a unique resource that covers both the spiritual and the practical side of giving. Let's dive into that. As you gentlemen know, the verse Luke 12 48, to whom much was given of him, much will be required, has a lot to do with our topic today. Russ, this is obviously your domain. You've been counseling a lot of wealthy believers for a long time. You know, we've been given a lot here in the U.S. Does that make it easier or more difficult to leverage that wealth for the kingdom?
Well, it's interesting, Rob. It seems like when we start our careers, we start our businesses, we have faith. And then when God blesses us and we have way more than we need, we tend to put our confidence and faith in the pile and not in God. And so, unfortunately, it seems like the more you have, sometimes it's harder to draw a finish line. We in our company have spent 40 years helping people realize there is an amount that's enough. Then you ought to be able to be generous above that amount. But I think it's harder. The more you have, sometimes it's harder to be generous, commensurate with how you've been blessed. You know, the New Testament says give according to your ability. And I think for wealthy people that becomes a hard thing to do. And so we've had the privilege of spending four decades helping people answer that question. But I think, yeah, it's harder, quite frankly, Rob, the more you have.
Yeah. What do you think about that, Ken, spiritually? There's a downward pull that money has on us.
It has its own gravity. Wealth is not a neutral thing. In fact, the whole concept is that the leverage, therefore, make use of the wealth of unrighteousness, as Jesus says in Luke 16. And that word, it's kind of interesting that King James there calls it filthy lucre, but make use of the wealth of the mammon or wealth of unrighteousness so that when it fails, of course, that's when you die. You leave it all behind. That's why there's no U-Haul behind the hearse.
The fact is you can't take it with you, but you can send it ahead. But it tethers us to this world. And we find our identity, it seems to be more and more fashioned and formed by the pile, as Russ describes it, by this gravity so that it has to be overcome. That gravity of the pull and holding it with an eternal perspective, because I think God uses financial abundance to refine and reveal where our hearts are. Wow, that's powerful.
We'll continue to unpack that. We're talking today with Russ Crossan and Dr. Ken Boa. Their new book, Leverage Using Temporal Wealth for Eternal Gain, is a must-read. When we come back, we'll talk about what is biblical leverage? How do you cultivate an eternal perspective? And what are some of the spiritual dangers with wealth?
That and much more with Ken Boa and Russ Crossan. This is Faith and Finance. I'm Rob West. We're going to take a quick break and come back with much more just around the corner. Stick around. Are you investing in the future of God's kingdom or wonder how your money can make the most impact for His purposes? Kenneth Boa and Russ Crossan wrote the book Leverage Using Temporal Wealth for Eternal Gain to guide these discussions and build a financial legacy where moth nor rust destroy.
Request your copy with your gift of any amount at FaithFi.com. Your donation helps us share God's financial principles with others. Leverage your resources for greater impact today. Great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance.
I'm Rob West. Joining me today, my good friends, Dr. Ken Boa and Russ Crossan. Ken is the founder of Reflections Ministries.
Russ is the chief mission officer at Ronald Blue Trust. We're talking today about their great new book Leverage Using Temporal Wealth for Eternal Gain. It's a really phenomenal book because it comes at both the spiritual and the practical side of generosity. Gentlemen, just to continue to build this out a bit, we were talking about how we've been blessed with much. If we have more than we need, we're rich according to the world's standards. But Russ, I know you've also written to folks who really don't have much.
I'm thinking about your book Money Made Simple, which just really boiled down these concepts for someone really at any income level. So what would you say to someone who says, I don't have enough to leverage it for the kingdom? Well, I think we all have something we can give. You can forego a meal out.
You can buy something at Goodwill rather than the designer store. So the idea is we need to give to acknowledge God's ownership. That's one of the reasons we give. It's the antidote.
It helps us get our hands off of it. And so whether you have a little or a lot, you need to get engaged in the giving journey, the generosity journey. And, you know, I didn't always know that when I was a young person, but I tell you, you cannot give God. So I'd say wherever you are, give something to acknowledge ownership. And then as we'll learn as we unpack this, you know, some people say, well, you got to get the 10 percent. Well, the New Testament says, give a coin to your ability. So I would say start where you are, give something to acknowledge ownership and see what God does.
Yeah, I love that. Ken, now, we're not saying folks should take a vow of poverty, but at the same time, as you mentioned before the break, wealth comes with spiritual dangers. So what do we need to be aware of there? We need to be aware, as I mentioned earlier, about this idea of a downward pull or a gravity that the world, the flesh and the devil actually act upon us. And so as part of that whole concept, money, as I say, is not neutral, but it can be leveraged for the kingdom or it can be leveraged for the flesh.
It has three things. The more we have, the harder it is, number one, to live by faith. Number two, the more we will make our identity based upon it. And third, the more proud we will be inclined to be. And so it's intriguing how those three things work in that concert. Yeah, I think Ken said it right and I said it earlier that it seems like we have faith.
We don't have anything. We trust God when we're building our businesses, starting our careers, but then we get the surplus and we put our confidence there. And it says in Psalm 78 that there's four generations talked about in Psalm 78, five to seven, he commanded the fathers to teach their children, to teach their children, to teach their children to put their confidence in God, not forget the works of God, but keep his commands. And so the best thing we can do for our families is be generous, but also model faith. And the more you have, it's sometimes hard to model that faith and show our kids we're putting confidence in God and not in the stuff. That's so important. Russ, what is this idea of biblical leverage?
How would you describe that? Well, you're sending it on ahead, you know, and you're storing up, you know, 30, 60, 100 fold returns. And I think, you know, we're told that in scripture, you know, you destroy treasures in heaven where moth and rust don't destroy and thieves don't break in and steal, Matthew 6. And so the idea is that I can take my temporal wealth and I begin to invest in people.
And I would hope for the listeners that when they get to heaven, there'll be people lined up to thank them for their generosity. That's what I mean by leverage. I talk about the concept of limited sphere. You can use your money and build more homes and build more stuff, but only a limited number of people ever know what you have financially. But if you invested in God's work and you leverage it, you know, through ministries, through your church, through your family, and by being generous, you can impact an unlimited sphere of people.
So that's the decision we all have. Am I going to try to impress a limited number of people, or am I going to send it on ahead and impact an unlimited sphere of people? That's a powerful idea. Dr. Boa, I've appreciated your teaching over the years on heaven and just living with and cultivating an eternal perspective. Why is it important to live with the end in mind?
Yes. The idea of understanding that what we do on this earth really does, as Maximus put it in Gladiator, has an impact on eternity is truth to this. The fact is that realizing the brevity of our earthbound sojourn, that we are in a soul-forming world, we're not home yet, is inviting us then to hold everything with a loose grip, insofar as we are actually, all of us, are stewards who own nothing, including that which we hold back, that we're going to be held accountable for. It's all God's, and He's going to ask us at the judgment seat, what did we do with it?
So we're invited to see it. So going back to this idea of leverage, give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, Archimedes said, and I will move the world. So it has the idea that you can actually move something and put it in the right place, and it has a disproportionate impact. And that's my view, is that our impact by giving into the kingdom of God and serving people is incalculably diffusive. We can't quantify it, but it'll multiply it far beyond its earthbound amount.
That's powerful. Russ, you mentioned that you've helped folks for 40 years think about this idea of enough, a financial finish line. What are some of the keys to helping folks begin to set that amount, and is it really a specific amount?
Well, and it is, Rob, for every individual. Everybody's worried about what if taxes change? What if the investments go down? What if inflation gets out of hand?
What if my living expenses go up? So there's four or five or six variables that whatever you can be stressed about, you can put into your unique situation and project it out, and there's a number that's enough. So everybody has a number, and this is not that fidelity number the investment commercials have. This is a number that's enough for you to live based on where you are in the country, where you are in your life.
But there's a finish line. There's a ceiling that's enough. And yes, you can quantify it. And then once you quantify it, and I've just helped a guy in the last couple of weeks say, oh, I don't need to keep building my net worth.
He saw his ceiling, he saw his finish line, and now he's being way more generous because he sees that. So yes, you can quantify it. Whatever you're worried about, put it in a projection, and you're probably going to have enough.
Yeah, that's so helpful. Dr. Boa, as we think about managing worldly wealth, we look to the Scriptures, we see there was plenty of examples of people who had significant means, and yet they were still pursuing God with everything. So we don't need to have guilt around that. It's really the idea of what we're going to do with it, right?
That's right. He's just given us more accountability, and so it's not that God blessed me. He gave me more accountability, more responsibility. To whom much has been given, much will be required. And therefore, we as stewards must always live with the understanding that it is required that we be faithful. So faith, reward in the Kingdom of Heaven is based on faithfulness to opportunity. And so the New Testament principles are far more radical in many respects, although there were four ties.
There's a passive tie, with so much it added up to actually about thirty-three and a half percent. It's much more than we would have supposed. But the New Testament tells us that we are actually to allow the Spirit to guide us, to give us with gratitude, to give it in a sacrificial way, to give it proportionately and give it consistently. There's a sense of privilege that we are allowed to be a player in something that's going to last forever. And that's the significance of the thing.
How long will it last? You know, I'm Rob. Ken mentioned the word accountability. Let me just jump in here and comment on that, because what we've experienced is that left to ourselves, we will not generally be generous, because we bought the lie of the world, the gravity, like Ken said, the tentacles that hold us down. And so you need accountability. Once a person sets that ceiling, are you going to actually give above and beyond that?
And so accountability is a very important aspect to be able to give according to your ability. Gentlemen, this has been great. I know this is just part one of a couple of interviews we'll be doing on this topic, but thanks for stopping by today. Thanks for having us.
Good to be with you. That's Ken Bowe and Russ Cross and the authors of Leverage, using temporal wealth for eternal gain. Get it wherever you buy books. Your calls are next.
The number, 800-525-7000. 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. You're listening to Faith and Finance, where we talk about how we handle God's resources.
How are you using God's resources? We're talking about it, and the lines are open to take your calls and questions. 800-525-7000 is the number to call. Let's head to Springfield, Missouri. Hey, Doug. Go right ahead, sir.
Hey, thanks for taking my call, Rob. I just had a quick question. My company just started a 401k last year, and it's through Boya. And I know nothing about that company. Actually, any of it, for that matter.
I just want to get your opinion. Is that a replica company? Yeah, it's reputable. It's actually an insurance company, and they act as a plan administrator for retirement plans. The key is what investment options you're choosing inside the plan.
It doesn't sound like you really have a choice as to which custodian or plan administrator they're using. Have you familiarized yourself, Doug, with the investment options that are inside that retirement plan? No, no. They did tell me they put me in what they call a 2035 plan.
I don't know what that is, but... Okay, yeah. When do you plan to retire? I mean, just based on what you know today. Probably another 16 years.
Okay. Yeah, so they put you in a 2035, which basically what that means is they're targeting a retirement date of 2035, which is 12 years from now. It sounds like you may be better suited in a 2040 target date fund, but essentially it takes kind of the guesswork out of investing, because the big idea with our investments is that as we get closer and closer to retirement, we want to get a bit more conservative. Now, we don't want to go completely conservative, because even once we hit retirement, let's say you move away from paid work at age 70, and God calls you to something else, and you're going to volunteer more, or whatever it might be, you still have a decades-long need for that money if the Lord tarries and you're in good health, so you will always have some allocation to stocks, but you might add more bonds to just lessen the volatility. Well, the idea behind a target date is that if the fund knows your expected retirement date, then as you get closer to that date, the manager of the fund is automatically going to make the investments more conservative. You, by being in a 2035, may be a little more conservative than I would like you to be, so you may be better suited in a 2040, but I don't have any problem with Voya, especially since that's the plan administrator your company has chosen, so you really don't have a choice.
I think the key is just to limit your lifestyle, be a diligent saver, and if you can continue to sock away a good bit of money over the next 15 years into this plan, you'll have quite a nest egg to use when you get to that season of life. Okay. All right. Well, that was my answer.
That was my question. I appreciate it. Absolutely, Doug. Listen, I understand you're a truck driver.
Are you out there on the road right now? Yes, sir. All right. What are you hauling today?
Hauling mail for post office. Okay. Very good. The former co-host of this program, whenever we had a trucker on, he loved truckers. He would ask that you would give us a little tune on the horn.
Is that possible? There it is. I love it. I'm going to have to tell Steve Moore that Steve will love that.
I've been listening to you guys for years, and I appreciate you guys' advice. That's great. God bless you, Doug, and thanks for what you're doing there to keep our economy functioning the way it should and get in the mail to us. God bless you. That's awesome. Steve will love that. I'll give him a call after the show. All right.
St. Louis, Missouri. Hey, George. Go ahead, sir. Hey. How are you doing today? I'm doing great. Thanks for calling.
You just got a quick question. I've been trying to investigate debt consolidators, and I was curious, and they're all over the board. If you have an opinion about them or anything you can help to direct me in the right direction.
Yeah, I'd be delighted to, George. Now, I want to make sure you're using the word debt consolidation in terms of what it actually means. I'm not a fan of debt consolidation, which essentially means taking out a new loan, paying off the old loans, and then paying that new loan at a lower interest rate. Is that what you're referring to, or are you using that term, which is the replacement for what's called debt management, where you just try to get the interest rates down, but you'd stay with the existing creditors? Your first illustration was correct. I'm financially ignorant, quite honestly.
I mean, I had a lot of money. No problem. I went through it all, and that's why I'm here looking at debt consolidators, to try to lower my overall monthly outcome plus reduce some interest rates. Got it.
Yep. So, the only problem I have with debt consolidation, and I understand why you'd want to consider it, because you're trying to get the interest rates down, and you're trying to hopefully take some pressure off the budget. The problem is, my experience in doing this for a lot of years and answering thousands of questions on this, is that when we take that approach, usually I get a call six months or a year later, and they say, Rob, guess what? I got this debt consolidation loan. Remember, we talked about that a year ago.
And guess what? The credit card debt's back. And now we've got a debt consolidation and the credit card debt to boot, because we treated the symptom and not the problem. The problem is spending beyond our means, and so we've got to do the hard work to right-size the budget, have some margin or some cushion in your financial life, living below your means, reining in spending, and coupled with what's called debt management, which is different than debt consolidation, where you don't take out a new loan, you don't pay off anything, you leave it right where it is, but with credit cards, we get those interest rates down. Because if you go through a debt management company like our friends at ChristianCreditCounselors.org, which is a nonprofit, they've worked with hundreds and hundreds of our listeners, what will happen is, through debt management, as long as you pay through them, and you'll send them one monthly payment, each of your existing credit card companies has a credit counseling rate, and it's going to be lower than the rate you're paying today. So what happens is we go to work on the budget, and they'll help you with this, you know, rein in your spending, get to a comfortable level monthly payment that you can send every month, and that combined with them dropping those interest rates is going to allow you to pay this debt off 80% faster. And my experience, George, is that if you take that approach, you'll pay it off, and you won't ever have it come back, because you'll do the hard work to rein in the spending, rather than just taking the pressure off by, you know, getting a new loan and paying it off.
So my advice would be, you call Christian Credit Counselors or go online ChristianCreditCounselors.org, and they'll walk you through everything, they'll help you work up a new budget, they'll tell you what they can get those interest rates down to based on the creditors you're with. And if it makes sense for you, I think it'll be a great way for you to get out of debt once and for all. Does that make sense? That's fantastic. I mean, that's what I'm trying to do. We're trying to, you know, pay off our credit cards and not, you know, I say exactly, I look at my credit cards, I couldn't believe they were 21, 27, just that. It's incredible. Yeah, especially with these fed funds rates up where it is, credit card debt, or credit card interest rates have climbed with it.
And it just really makes it challenging to get those things going in the right direction. I think this will really help you, George. ChristianCreditCounselors.org. Hey, God bless you. Once you pay that off, give us a call back. I'd love to hear from you.
Well, that does it for us today. I'm Rob West. Thanks to our amazing production team and to you for listening. I hope you'll join us again next time right here on Faith and Finance. Faith and Finance is provided by Faith Buy and listeners like you.
