Two Financial Attitudes to Avoid: Greed and Envy

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Learn more at Praxismutualfunds.com. Hebrews 12, 1 warns us to throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. That includes sinful financial attitudes.

Hi, I'm Rob West. Being entangled by sinful attitudes about your money and possessions can really steal your peace. Today, we'll discuss the evils of envy and greed and how to overcome them. And 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. Sin springs from the fallen condition of our hearts and separates people from God. Tragically, our world is broken because of this and the tendency towards evil touches every part of our lives, including our finances.

That's why we need Jesus, right? Well, today we'll focus on envy and greed, both of which are on the list of seven deadly sins drawn up by believers in the fourth century to describe the worst kinds of human desires. Let's start with envy. Envy is that gnawing feeling of jealousy when someone has better things or better opportunities than you. Envy often goes hand in hand with covetousness. That's a strong desire to possess what someone else has.

And it's clearly forbidden in the Ten Commandments. Envy also destroys relationships because it divides people based on how much someone has or doesn't have. As if it weren't bad enough, an envious person lacks peace.

Proverbs 14-30 confirms this. A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones. Envy is a common human emotion, and it's destructive, as you can see.

So how do we overcome our tendency to want what other people have? Well, just as God's Word warns against envy, God's Word provides the cure. Envy is sin, and the first thing to do about sin is to repent. In Christ, we can be sure of God's forgiveness.

1 John 1-9 says, If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Next, ask God to replace your feelings of envy with patience and kindness. 1 Corinthians 13-4 reads, Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy.

Patience trusts that God will provide for you in his timing. Kindness cancels out envy because it puts the needs of others ahead of your own. Gratitude is another antidote for envy. When we focus on being grateful, there's no need to compare what we have with what someone else has. We're just thankful for what God has provided for us, right now, trusting that he knows what's best for us. Hebrews 13-15 says, Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise, the fruit of our lips that confess his name. God has given us so much.

He made us, he loves us unconditionally, and he provides everything that we need to thrive. It doesn't matter what someone else has. When we focus on the Lord, filling our hearts and our minds with truth from his word, there's no room for envy. Now, what about greed?

Well, that's a second financial attitude to avoid. Just as an envious person is unsatisfied because of comparisons with others, a greedy person is unsatisfied because they never think they have enough. You've read in 1 Timothy 6-10 that the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.

Well, there's certainly a lot of sins that can spring from a love of money, especially greed, because it's so selfish. A greedy person wants to accumulate wealth, power, or status for themselves, at the expense of others. Greedy desire, if left unchecked, can lead to sins like theft and even murder. Most of us don't consider ourselves to be greedy people, but greed can show up in more subtle ways, including an attitude of entitlement or hoarding, perhaps overspending, cheating, or dishonesty. Most of us have faced these temptations at one time or another. So how can we break the power of selfish desire in our lives? What is the antidote to greed?

Repentance, of course. And then I'd say the answer is generosity. When we give generously, we're breaking out of selfishness and thinking about the needs of others instead of ourselves. When we're being generous, God begins to turn our hearts outwards. Godly generosity brings joy instead of bitterness and satisfaction instead of frustration. My challenge to you is ask God to show you someone you can help with your resources today, whether it's your time, your skills, or your money, and then give willingly and generously. 2 Corinthians 9 says, God loves a cheerful giver.

Your calls are next at 800-525-7000. I'm Rob West and this is Faith and Finance, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. 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.

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Visit faithfi.com and click Give. Welcome back to Faith and Finance. I'm Rob West. Looks like we have two lines open. 800-525-7000 to Ohio. Hi, Becky.

Go ahead. Thank you for taking my call. I've been a longtime listener. I'm searching for a lost pension from my late husband. He passed away at age 52 in 2008 and he was to get a pension from a former employer. And the company has been bought and sold, bought and sold, bought and sold, and has gone away. And apparently the pension plan has too.

I've been trying to track it down for three years. I tried REA TENTO, which was, I guess at one time they bought this pension plan, but that was a dead end. And I tried the Employees Benefit and Security Administration. And then one day I was listening to your program last year and I tried ERISA for the state of Ohio. So I've been looking for this money for three years.

Okay. And when you contacted, did you contact the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation at the phone number for an unclaimed pension benefit? I did that back in April of this year and they weren't able to find anything. And then I talked to a guy at ERISA after listening to your program and he wasn't able to find anything. And I even called the Attorney General's office and they suggested I get an attorney. And I just didn't know if half of this monthly benefit is only like $57, but it would be for the rest of my life. And I didn't know if that would be worth it or what type of attorney to use.

Yeah. Unfortunately, I'm kind of at a loss here, Becky. And I think it sounds like you've exhausted the resources, at least that I'm aware of. Yeah, I think that's perhaps your next step for you to reach out to an attorney and then just at least find out what it would cost for them to do some work for you, some legwork on trying to find this. Obviously, there's something there you're entitled to.

I can understand why you'd want it. Normally, the methods that you mentioned are successful in trying to locate a pension that has gone missing. More than 80,000 people at the last data I saw have not claimed their earned defined benefit pension. And that's really where the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation steps in to help people locate them. But obviously, in your situation, that wasn't successful. So I would at least find out what the cost is going to be for an attorney and let us know how this one turns out. I'm really sorry that I didn't have better news for you today, Becky, but we appreciate your call today. All right, let's continue the conversation with Austin, Texas, actually Christopher in Austin, Texas.

How can I help you, sir? I'm a first-time buyer. I haven't purchased a property yet, but I wanted to look into real estate. I hear that you can get a first-time buyer's loan or you could go ahead and get an FHA loan. And I don't know the difference between the two. And I was just wondering what's your advice on going about those loans and which is the best option for a first-time buyer?

Yeah. Well, I think the best option for you is just to save up so you have the proper down payment of at least 20% before you purchase the house. I would look to get the very best loan you can from a conventional standpoint in terms of the fees that you'll be spending plus the interest rate, of course. I think you need to be looking at what you can afford in terms of a mortgage payment. And what we're seeing is in a lot of markets, it actually makes more sense to buy than to rent. And so just given how high rental prices are, as long as you're not getting overextended, you ought to take a look at purchasing and building equity. Kind of a good rule of thumb for that mortgage payment after you put the 20% down would be no more than 25%, 30% max of your take-home pay for principal interest taxes and insurance. And that's going to allow you to have money left over for everything else. So I think the key for you right now is to find a great mortgage lender.

I'd probably visit with the folks at movement.com slash faith and movement mortgage, but you just need to find a trusted partner that can find a great loan program for you. But it's all got to start with your budget, Christopher, to make sure that you have enough saved and that, you know, that monthly payment can be absorbed into your budget in such a way that it doesn't create, you know, you have enough cushion basically for everything else. Does that make sense? That makes total sense. I appreciate your help. I think that was all that I needed. Okay, very good. Well, listen, if we can help further, give us a call back and we appreciate your call today, sir. God bless you. Let's stay in Texas. Phillip, you'll be next up.

Go ahead. I have some gold coins I inherited. My wife and I are both retired. We're financially set and we don't really need them, but they're just sitting there. I've got them in a safe deposit box and they keep costing me money just to keep them. And I don't, I don't know how to get the value of them.

I think they're estimated around 50 or $60,000 worth of gold coins and I don't know what to do with them. Yeah. So you're, you would be interested obviously as long as you can get a fair price selling them, correct?

Yes. So I think the key is to find a trusted source to, you know, give you an honest and accurate appraisal of these. There's a couple of organizations that could help you get to somebody that is reputable in your area. One would be the Numismatic Guarantee Corporation. A numisticist is somebody who works in this area of coins. So it's the Numismatic Guarantee Corporation.

There's also the PCGS, the Professional Coin Grading Service. You could do a web search for that or the American Numismatic Association. Any of those would give you a way to find an appraiser that would allow you to understand what you have. And there's also several smartphone apps out there now that will help you appraise coins yourself. So I think once you get an idea of what you're ultimately looking for, then you want to get to a buyer who's going to give you what the true appraised value is for what you're sitting on. What we can do is this. If you want to hold the line, Philip, we'll get your information and I will get you a listing of some folks you can contact or at least some of these web links that will ultimately allow you to select a dealer or an appraiser to get you the value.

And then once you know what you have, you and your wife can sit down and think about it, pray about it, decide whether you want to hang on to these or whether you'd like to go ahead and sell them. So stay on the line, Philip. We'll get your information and we'll see if we can get you more information. Thanks for your call today. To Arkansas, Raymond, how can we help you? Yeah, thank you for taking my call. God bless you and all that you do. Thank you.

I'm one of them people. I got all my eggs in one basket, sir. I got one home that I'm carrying the mortgage on. I've got another home that I use as a rental.

It's a three-bedroom, two-bath for $8.50 a month. And then I've got my five-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath and all these homes are paid for, but I'm 70 years old living in this big home and I think I need to downsize. I don't know if I should go ahead and just sell both houses and buy me a piece of property and put a tiny house on it or put that money in the stocks and bonds or just hold on to them. What's your advice on that?

Yeah, that's a great question. Here's my thing. Ultimately, being a landlord comes with it a lot of additional responsibility. Now, you've obviously done well in real estate. These have probably been great investments for you.

I think the question is just the timing. Do you want to have more active investments like real estate or do you want to have more passive investments where you can take all of the equity that you've built up in these assets and convert that to something that can be managed by somebody else? And get you an income for it, protect what you have and grow it modestly, but without you having to put in all the work. Let's talk about that on the other side of this break. Stay right there. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Faith and Finance.

I'm Rob West. Just before the break, we were talking to Raymond in Arkansas. He's 70 years old. He's got two rental properties plus his own house sitting on a pretty significant real estate portfolio and just wondering if it's time to downsize and sell. And I think, Raymond, the first question is just where you're going to live, which isn't really an investment.

I mean, it is. We would want it to appreciate over time. But the definition of an investment is when it's accomplished its purpose, we sell it. And that's typically not how we look at our homes because that's where you live. So I think, you know, if you've got more home than you need for your domicile, then absolutely, let's sell that. And we can take that money and redeploy it and get you into either a single family home that's right sized for just the amount of upkeep and space that you need. Or get you into some place that, you know, better fits your needs at a townhouse or something else. With those other properties, it really just comes down to the investment strategy. Real estate can be a very effective way to build wealth.

You've seen that play out in your own life. But it comes with its, you know, upkeep and the work that you have to put in. Now you can hire folks to do that for you, property managers and so forth. But it typically involves a little bit more work than more of a passive investment strategy where you might liquidate those properties and now's a good time to do it. And then take that money and redeploy it either yourself or by hiring an investment advisor, you know, to build a diversified portfolio for you. So I guess with your primary residence, I'm hearing you want to downsize.

I think that's great. This would be a great time to do it. With those investments, are you sensing that it's time to kind of lessen the burden of real estate ownership? And does that sound attractive to you to move towards stocks and bonds? Well, I've got good renters and the mortgage that I'm holding, they pay on a regular basis. I don't have trouble there and they take pretty good care of the property. My big concern is with my health, I don't want my kids to have to go through the disposal of this property and end up giving it away because they don't want to live in Arkansas. And thank God they're all very successful children.

They all make good money and they all got good jobs and they own their homes. So they won't need the money. And I just hate to see them to give what I've worked hard for away to an auction or something. I'm thinking I give it to where it would be a little easier for them to do this, put their hands on it and divide it.

Yeah, very good. Well, that would certainly be the case if you went ahead and went through the process now of liquidating these properties. So I think it's really just a function of you finding that right real estate professional if you don't already have one that can help you market and sell these properties and maximize the market value on them. If you want to do any charitable giving, now I would look at potentially gifting a portion of these properties to maybe a donor advised fund prior to the sale so that you don't have the capital gains portion on that. And then that could be given away either by you or the kids or both of you.

And so that's a great opportunity for you. And then once you've liquidated the properties, any portion that's not going to be given away could then be invested. And if you don't have an advisor, I'd connect with a certified kingdom advisor on our website at faithfi.com. Just click find a CK, they could build a diversified portfolio, you could put the kids on as the beneficiaries on the accounts, and you know, it would create a very efficient transfer to them at your death. And then it's just a matter of the kind of the wealth transfer decisions you need to make as to how much do you want to go to charity or ministry?

How much do you want to go to the kids? Do you want it to happen all at once? You know, making those decisions and then making sure your estate plan is designed, whether it's through the beneficiary designations on your investment accounts or a will or a trust, all of that's, you know, in proper order, so that you can efficiently pass your assets and personal items to either ministry or your kids at death efficiently. Does that make sense?

Yes, sir. And that's right in line with what I do. I support my church and two different food banks is where I like to keep my money at. And that would be a great idea to give them part of the money right up front.

Yeah, yeah, very good. If you do that, using a donor advised fund to do that, especially with real estate, if you were to give and you don't have to give a whole the whole thing to your donor advised fund, but whatever portion you want to give do that, you know, sign over a percentage of that property to the DAF before the sale, and that will save you some taxes. But in either case, it sounds like, you know, perhaps your next steps are to begin the process of liquidating this real estate portfolio. So you're a little more liquid, and you can pass what you want.

And you can pass what you have a little bit more efficiently. Thanks for your call, sir. God bless you.

To Chicago, Illinois. Hi, Sharon, go right ahead. We're investigating a faith based medical sharing plan. I'm 66. My husband will turn 65 in two months.

And I'm on Medicare and he is obviously not he has his own personal medical plan. And I'm just wondering, I looked at the meta share length, and then I heard I heard advertised on this program that the CFM network, I believe. And I just wondered if you had thoughts in terms of evaluating the two together. You know, to know which one would be more appropriate or yeah, I know the size is pretty comparable.

But also I understand it. I think that it's going to be a savings to us in terms of the Medicare part to the that portion of it. I think I just wanted to say I appreciate your thoughts.

Yeah, very good. Well, Sharon, I would affirm your your thought here these I like the Christian medical sharing plans a lot. The two that you mentioned are some of the most the oldest and the biggest Medicare and Christian Health Care Ministries, the reason you know, we've partnered with CHM for a long time. So, you know, I can certainly with confidence tell you that would be one you should look at just because some of our own team members have been on it. And they're the oldest and the biggest in this space. And we just know them really well. And so can really speak to the quality of the organization, their ministry focus, but just the size and strength of what they do.

But certainly, you know, there are other players in the space, you mentioned another one that would be one of the other major ones. So I think at the end of the day, it's going to come down to which one you feel most comfortable with evaluating the two plans, looking at the pricing, and deciding which one would be the best fit for you. I can just tell you Christian Health Care Ministries at chministries.org is one we're personally involved in so I can give that perspective. Okay, may I ask one more question?

Yes, I've got just a little bit of time. In addition, how do you find a certified kingdom advisor that you can trust? I know they're all certified, but I often worry that after all these years of saving money, I hate to stab someone and then have them take a great percentage of what we've worked so hard for.

Yes. Well, that's why there's so many standards that are related to earning the CKA, not only the university based training, but a pastor reference, client reference, regulatory review, statement of faith, ongoing continuing education. So we made it very difficult to get. I would interview two or three and just find the one that you feel is the best fit, but to find a CKA, just head to our website, faithfi.com and click find a CKA. Well, once again, our time went by way too fast, but tune in next time and we'll do it all over again. Before we go, I'd like to thank our incredible production team, Amy, Devin, Jim, Robert, Brandy, Rob and Ben. Couldn't do it without them. Have a great rest of your day and I'll see you again next time for another edition of Faith and Finance. Faith and Finance is provided by Faith Buy and listeners like you.