What’s Your Relationship Status With God?

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Go to HopeforZambia.com slash faith to give and change lives. Most people would say their most important relationship is with their spouse or children or perhaps a friend, and they'd be wrong. Hi, I'm Rob West. Those relationships are important. We need them, but they don't carry eternal significance like your relationship with God. Today I'll give some practical ways to strengthen that relationship. 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. So this is a program about money, and you may be wondering what money has to do with our relationship with God.

That's a fair question, and the answer is a lot. And the Bible gives us three dots to make that connection. First, God created everything, and therefore he owns everything. Colossians 1 16 says, For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him. Second, God gave us everything we possess.

Deuteronomy 10 14 reads, Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. So God owns everything, but he's given us resources to use temporarily as his stewards. And last, God is not distant and detached.

He wants a close relationship with you. James 4 8 tells us, Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. We draw near to God by being obedient and following his law. With over 2300 verses in scripture about money and possessions, God has made his desire quite clear. He wants us to manage money according to his principles. Our friend Howard Dayton points out that wisely managing money and the other resources God blesses us with deepens our fellowship with Christ. Having a close relationship with Jesus is another way to describe what the Bible calls true riches. In Luke 16 11, Jesus indicates that God uses money as a test. He says, If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust you the true riches? Jesus is saying that how you handle money affects your spiritual life. If you manage it well, according to biblical principles, you'll naturally grow closer to him.

If not, your fellowship with him suffers. So biblical money management is a very practical way to improve your spiritual life. But sometimes things get in the way of that. There are two kinds of disobedience that keep us from handling money God's way and growing closer to him.

The first is passive. It's just laziness. Some people don't want to take the time to organize their finances, make a budget and track their spending. Doing those things might only take a few hours a month. Still, it's just too much to bother with.

Worse, that same person will spend more time than that watching TV every night. As a result, intimacy with God suffers. Now, if you don't have a spending plan, we urge you to download the Faithfi app.

It has three options for setting up a budget quickly and easily and then tracking your spending. You can get it at faithfi.com or wherever you get your apps. So that's the first form of disobedience, passive. Another person has a different obstacle to growing closer to God.

It's an active or willful disobedience. For that person, money and possessions compete with Christ. Jesus tells us in no uncertain terms how that will turn out. In Matthew 6 24, he says, No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. You see, often that person thinks he can surrender every part of his life to Christ except money. He might be good at making money, paying bills on time, saving and investing, but he refuses to give Christ lordship over his finances. Maybe he stumbles over tithing or other giving to God's kingdom.

He has the resources, but he just doesn't want to give. Again, his intimacy with Christ suffers. Finally, there's another person who's not following biblical financial principles but thinks her relationship with the Lord is just fine. To her we might say, what you don't know will hurt you.

What are you missing out on? You might think finances aren't interfering with your relationship with God, but how would you know? If any of these people sound like you, I suggest you commit your finances to the Lord in earnest prayer, and then follow through managing your money and possessions his way. Again, you'll find what you need to get started by downloading the Faithfi app.

It will not only help you set up your budget, the Faithfi app gives you access to the best Christian financial content out there to help you grow closer to God by following his principles. All right, your calls are next. 800-525-7000.

We'll be right back. That's joinchristiancommunity.com. The credit union is an underwriter of this ministry, membership eligibility required.

Are you searching for a way to become a better, faithful steward of the resources that God has given you? Well, download the Faithfi app and join the 37,000 others who are already using our app. The Faithfi app will provide you with wisdom, community, and simply help you stay on track with your finances. We have three money management options to choose from, so find an option that fits your unique needs.

It's available on desktop or mobile. Simply go to faithfi.com and click app to get started. Welcome back to Faith and Finance. I'm Rob West, giving you some practical insights on how you can manage God's money, and it is all God's. That makes us stewards of his resources, and in order to be an effective steward, we need to know the heart of the master. So we go back to scripture and pull out those big themes that were to hold money loosely, give it generously, live with contentment, find our identity not in our things but in Christ, and pursue an eternal perspective.

You put all of that together and it fundamentally changes how you approach managing God's money, recognizing it's a high calling. Well, we want to help you do that on this program each day. We're delighted you're here, and we know you probably have some financial questions you've been thinking about lately. Well, we'd love for you to bring those to the table.

Let's talk about them together. So whatever you're thinking about financially, give us a call right now with lines open 800-525-7000. Again, 800-525-7000. Let's begin today in Harrisburg, PA. Robert, go ahead, sir. Thank you for taking my call.

We've received some ERC monies and we're just kind of curious on what we should do and also tithing, how we should handle that as well. Yeah, so you have a small business and you received an employee retention credit. Is that what you're talking about? Yes, sir.

Okay, great. Yeah, so for the benefit of our audience, this is a payroll tax refund. You have the ability to get up to $26,000 per employee. It was designed by the Treasury Department to help businesses that kept employees on the payroll during the pandemic.

And we're seeing as these payments come out, folks are looking forward to putting this money to work. Essentially, Robert, this would be a business tax refund. So it's essentially revenue to the business that was no longer expensed because you didn't actually have to pay it into the IRS. So being able to take this money and now applying this to your business, essentially if you're tithing from your business, it's a bit different than the way you would approach a tithe on your personal finances. So with your personal finances, you would just take any increase that you have salary, wages, a gift, an inheritance, anything like that.

And you would tithe on that as an increase, give a 10th. With a business that's different, you've got to take the gross revenues, but then you have to subtract expenses from those revenues to determine what your true profit is. And that would include after you pay out the salaries after all of your overhead and equipment and facilities and marketing. I mean, all of that taxes would leave you with some retained profit in the business.

And I would look at that on a certain interval. Oftentimes you'll do that on an annual basis when you file your taxes. So this would basically just increase the revenues of the company. And at the end of the year or quarter, whatever period you determine after you subtract all the expenses and determine how much profit you have over and above the salary, you're going to pay yourself and others. Then if you wanted to tithe on that as a business that you own solely, then you would give a gift on that increase. So I would just factor this into the overall business operations to determine what your true increase is. Does that make sense, though? Yes, yes, thank you. Okay, very good. I love the fact, Robert, you're looking at your business not only as a way to provide for yourself and meet the needs of others through your product or service, but as an engine for giving.

That's phenomenal. So it's just another tool that as the Lord provides and you have profits over and above your operating expenses, giving as unto the Lord is just a wonderful thing. And if this ERC can help you give even more, well, that's great. Hey, thanks for calling today, sir. If we can help you further along the way, please don't hesitate to reach out. 800-525-7000 is the number to call with some lines open today. We'd love to hear from you. Let's head to my hometown, Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Is it Tara? Thank you for calling. Go ahead.

Thank you for taking my call. My question is that I've been married for quite some time now, but my name was never on the mortgage. My name was on the is on the title, but not on the mortgage. Now that I'm making some money, I'm making money, I would like to contribute so we can pay off the mortgage quicker. So I want to find out whether or not that will be a good thing for me just to go and contribute to the mortgage when my name is not on it.

And given that we do not want to refinance because of what's going on now with the interest rate, or if you have a better idea how we can do that, pay off the mortgage quickly, even if my name is not on the mortgage. No, that's fine. So typically what happens there is you're married and you and your husband own this home, is that right?

Yes, we do. Okay. And you're both on the title. Yeah. So you both legally own the home, but what happened was, likely, when you all went to get the mortgage, you only needed your husband's income in order to qualify for the mortgage. So he was the only one that was put on the mortgage, is that right? Yes.

Okay. But there's a lien on the property with this mortgage. So if this mortgage isn't paid, they're going to have the recourse to foreclose on the home that you own with your husband. So you absolutely want to pay this off just as he does. And by the way, the way we approach finances in marriage, when two become one, that includes our finances, right? So we want to look at this as an opportunity for you all to have shared goals, you know, bring all the finances together, manage it together, and pursue whatever the Lord has for you as one flesh through your finances, whether or not your name happens to be on the mortgage or not as secondary. So I would say, yeah, as long as you all have proper emergency funds, meaning three to six months expenses, if you're on track in saving for retirement, you don't have any other short term goals that are you're trying to meet, like, you know, saving for a new car purchase or something like that, that accelerating the mortgage is a great idea would allow you to pay it off, you know, that much quicker.

And I'd love for that to be the case as soon as you can. But certainly by the time you retire, because that's going to take your largest expense off the table. So as you all look at your household finances together as a married couple, if you're working, you're bringing income in, he is as well, you're creating a spending plan, you have margin or surplus at the end of the month, and you want to take a portion of that and accelerate the mortgage payoff by sending an amount beyond the scheduled payment for principal reduction.

I think that's great. And you would want to do that whether you're on the mortgage or not. The key would just be to talk to your mortgage servicer, whoever you write that payment to, to find out how they want you to submit that. If you do it online, you could, you know, add a little note, you know, in the box that says principal reduction, and, and you could put it in there, if you're just sending it through bill pay service, you just want to make sure that that extra amount is in fact going to the principal.

But at the end of the day, I think this is a great idea. And the fact that you're on the mortgage is really more of a, you know, just an administrative type thing that had to do with where the income documentation was coming from. Can I clarify something quick?

Sure, sure. Someone mentioned that, let's say that something happened. God forbid something happened to my spouse.

In order for me to pay the mortgage off, I would have to go to court. That's when I got a little bit worried, concerned. I'm like, let me see if that would not be better for me to be now on the mortgage. Let's say that something happened, you know, we never know. It's not that we are talking about it, but it might happen. So I don't know if you see my concern.

I do. Yeah, let's do this. I've got to take a quick break. If you don't mind holding, I'd love to tackle this, the second portion of this with regard to you not being on the mortgage and the implications of that, because that's a good question.

And there's a lot of folks that don't have a spouse on the mortgage, even though they own the home and both names are on the title. So we're going to take a quick break. Tara, we come back, we'll tackle that second part of the question. And then Susan and Indiana, we're coming your way.

Additional wide's open. We'd love to hear from you. 800-525-7000. This is Faith and Finance.

We'll be back after this. financial wisdom for living well. More information, including the short video webinar on profit and peace of mind, no matter what's happening in the market is available at sound mind investing.org. If the heavy burden of debt is robbing you of freedom and peace of mind, Christian credit counselors can help. We're a nationwide nonprofit credit counseling organization that has helped over 300,000 individuals in the last 27 years get out of credit card debt 80% faster while honoring that debt in full. To learn how Christian credit counselors can help you, visit christiancreditcounselors.org. That's christiancreditcounselors.org or call 800-557-1985. Welcome back to Faith and Finance.

I'm Rob West. This is the program where the 2,300 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. We're talking to Tara in Fort Lauderdale and we're talking about the mortgage. She and her husband are on the deed to the home.

However, only his name appears on the mortgage. We were talking about the wisdom of the two of them together trying to accelerate the mortgage payoff and I said absolutely as long as other pieces are in place. They've got some emergency funds. They're not paying high interest consumer debt. They're saving for retirement.

I absolutely love the idea of accelerating the mortgage payoff. She's asking a follow-up question here about the importance of or the significance of her not being on the mortgage if something were to happen to her husband. Tara basically federal law requires lenders to allow family members to assume a mortgage if they inherit the property. In this case, you're not inheriting it.

You're already a legal owner to it. You would be able to assume that mortgage at your husband's death and then just continue paying on it. Of course, if you didn't pay on it, they would have recourse to foreclose. You don't have to assume it. It could be paid off by the property being sold or refinanced but they do have to let you assume it. There would be no reason for you all to refinance at this point especially if you have a low interest rate mortgage. It doesn't concern me that you're not on it.

You all are treating it as though you're paying it together as you join all of your finances in marriage but the fact that you're not actually on the mortgage itself is not a problem. All right. Okay. That helped a lot. We wanted to hear from you.

Yes. Thank you so much. I appreciate you.

All right. You're very welcome. Thanks for your call today. We appreciate it. 800-525-7000.

We've got a few lines open to Indiana. Hi, Susan. Go ahead.

Hi. Thank you so much and thank you for your wisdom from the Lord. I am of retirement age but still working full-time. I am drawing social security and I do have military retirement coming in and I'm also teaching adjunct.

So, I feel very blessed. My retirement is with the teachers, the TIAA and my question about that is whether I should just leave it there or should I shift to a local money management firm where I know the individual who would be handling it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, TIAA-CREF is a reputable institution without question.

Have you... So, the TIAA-CREF is your teacher's retirement account. Is that right? Correct. All right.

And are you still teaching? I am. Yes.

Okay. Do you have the option to roll it out? Well, yes. In other words, yes. I could roll it into another, like a local firm.

Usually, you have to separate from employment before you can do that but you may be able to. I don't have any problem with you leaving it right there. There's some great investment options inside that platform. Again, it's very reputable.

The costs are, I think, very well in line with what would be normal and customary. So, unless you had a relationship with an advisor where you just wanted somebody to take active oversight of it, then it's probably easier to roll it out as long as you have the ability to do that and you can keep it in a tax-deferred environment because then that advisor would have essentially unlimited investment options available to him or her to be able to choose from. But if you're going to continue to manage it yourself, then I would just leave it right where it is. Do you have a relationship with an advisor or are you pursuing one? I do.

And, you know, he pursued me but he's a Christian so I honestly would trust him. But I guess I was just questioning the wisdom. I don't need to move it. I don't feel the need to move it.

I just was wondering. Yeah. Well, if you're not sensing the need to move it and you don't feel necessarily compelled to hire an advisor to manage this, it seems to be performing well, I don't have any problem with you leaving it right where it is. All right. And may I ask another question?

Sure, go ahead. Okay, so I am estranged. My husband left back in 2015 and he, unlike the previous caller, we are on the mortgage together. So there's about $70,000 left on the mortgage and I have been paying and taking care of everything.

And so I guess my question is, do I try to pay it off or do I simply make the health payment and not... I mean, I... Yeah. Who owns the house, Susan?

I'm not sure what you're asking. I mean, that's in both of our names. Okay, so you both have... So you both own 50% of the property still even? Did you actually file divorce or you just separated?

No, no, we're not even legally separated. He just left. That's it. I see. Yeah. Okay.

All right. And so are you in communication and what would the plan be? Let's say you were to sell the property.

What would you do with it? He won't sign to sell. He refuses to sell. Yeah. Okay. But if he's not making the payments, if you were to stop making the payments, the property would be foreclosed on and he would lose a lot of value of this property. True.

So would I. Yeah. No, that's right. I'm not suggesting you do that. Well, I mean, I think the bottom line is if you're treating this as... I mean, it's your home in addition to being an asset, right? And this is an unusual situation given that you're not legally separated or divorced and you own this home jointly, even though he's not paying any part of it and he's left.

So I think at this point, I would probably just continue to make the scheduled monthly payments if you have a low interest rate and just do everything you can do to shore up the rest of your financial life in your own name, rather than trying to focus on accelerating this mortgage payoff with an asset that he's entitled to 50% of. Okay. Thank you so much. I sure appreciate you. You're welcome, Susan. Thank you for your service to our country.

And I'm so sorry to hear about the situation with your husband. We'll certainly pray that the Lord will intervene there. Well, we're almost out of time. If you liked today's program, why not share it with a friend? And while you're at it, share the Faith Buy app with them as well. Help us get the word out. Thanks for listening and sharing. And I hope you'll come back and join us again next time for another edition of Faith & Finance. Faith & Finance is provided by Faith Buy and listeners like you.