Whole Life Stewardship

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. And God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. Genesis 1, 28.

I am Rob West. That verse presents what's often called the creation or cultural mandate, which in turn is the foundation of whole life stewardship. I'll talk about those ideas today, and 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. Okay, the cultural mandate.

What is that exactly? Well, it's the very first set of orders given to man in the Garden of Eden. Before the fall, be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Ironically, the cultural mandate found in the Bible is about 180 degrees opposite of what the culture of the world is teaching and preaching today. To those, many of whom worship creation over the Creator, man is a blight upon the world.

They would like man's presence reduced, population limited, carbon footprint shrunk. To some, this presents a conundrum. What are we to believe? God's word? Or, quote, experts who've been warning us about imminent starvation for over 200 years now?

Englishman Thomas Malthus first predicted it in 1798. I think we should consult the owner on this, and it's not us. The Bible makes clear that as the Creator, God owns everything. First Corinthians 10 26 teaches, For the earth is the Lord's, and all it contains.

Haggai 2 8 says, The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares the Lord of hosts. Psalm 50 verse 10 reads, For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. And yes, God even owns us. First Corinthians 6 19 reads, Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?

You are not your own. Now, even though God owns the world and everything in it, He's given it all to man to act as his stewards, fill the earth, and subdue it. We also find in Psalm 115 16, The heavens are the heavens of the Lord, but the earth He has given to the sons of men. And in a somewhat narrower context, we have Joshua 1 30, Every place on which the sole of your foot treads, I have given it to you, just as I spoke to Moses.

There God was giving all of Canaan to the Israelites, as was his right to do. So God created everything, including us. He owns everything, including us. And He's told us to subdue and have dominion over the earth, to be his stewards.

Now, what exactly does that mean? Well, this is where the concept of whole life stewardship comes in. God didn't tell us to be stewards on weekends only.

Our stewardship hours of operation are not listed in the cultural mandate. We're to be stewards 24-7. God didn't tell us to be stewards only of the money we decide to give back to his kingdom. Not just a tithe, but the other 90% of our increase as well. We're to use it all wisely and in a way that glorifies God. As Larry Burkett liked to say, every spending decision is a spiritual decision. Finally, God did not tell us to be stewards only with our time and money. They're very important, but they're not the only resources God has given you. You also have skills, talents, and interests, all on loan from God, you might say. God created us in His image, and He wired each of us in a unique way. For example, some of us are good with numbers and actually like math. Others can take practically any appliance apart, replace a broken part, and put it back together so it works. That's a gift.

Some people can learn a new language as adults quite easily, while for most of us that's a difficult, time-consuming thing to accomplish. Some people have patience with children, and adults who act like children, far beyond what seems humanly possible. That is truly a gift from God. Now, it would be impossible to list all of the different skills, abilities, and interests that God has given us, but we don't have to.

The important thing is for you to discover what yours are, and then begin using them for kingdom work, if you aren't already. God has been incredibly generous with us, to the point of even giving us His only Son, Jesus Christ, that we might be saved and enter into heaven. God wants us to be generous as well, to use the resources He's given us – time, treasure, and talents – to make the world a better place. He wants us to share in the joy of doing kingdom work that extends far beyond a tithe. You see, folks, He wants us to be whole-life stewards. All right, your calls are next, 800-525-7000, 800-525-7000.

Stick around. This is Faith and Finance, and 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.

Visit faithfi.com and click the word APP to get started. We are grateful for support from Lightpoint Portfolios, which seeks out family and faith-friendly investments for 401k and 403b plans, integrating faith values and fiduciary duty. Lightpoint Portfolios offers retirement plans for a variety of organizations such as businesses, nonprofits, and churches, and we're grateful for their sponsorship of the Faith and Finance program.

More information is available at lightpointportfolios.com. As we think about our role as stewards, we have a high calling to manage what God has entrusted to us, not only our financial resources, but our time, and our skills, and abilities, God's word, our relationships, but yes, our money, or I should say God's money. We want to be found faithful in that.

It's long obedience in the same direction, right? We want to look to God's word and find the principles and passages, the themes in scripture that really apply to financial decision-making and bring those to bear in our lives as we make daily financial decisions, ultimately maintaining an eternal, not a temporal perspective, holding God's money loosely, giving it generously, saving appropriately, and that's what we want to help you do on this program each day because we know the joy and the peace of mind that comes with living according to God's design in all areas of our life, but that certainly includes with financial resources. So let's do that together. We've got two lines open today, 800-525-7000 is the number to call.

We're going to go to Indiana. Hi, Kathy. Thanks for calling. Go ahead.

Hi, thank you. So my husband passed away a year and a half ago and I'm on a fixed income. I get some money from an IRA every other month and then my Social Security and a small pension. My husband's life insurance is in a total control account, which I can't add anything to, but I'm getting fairly good interest, but I found I really need a little more income during the month, and if I give that money to Salvation Army, to gift annuity, I can get about $100 a month, and I was wondering if it was a smart thing to put it in that or if I should put it in, which I can't take out of if I need the money, or if I should put it in some place that I can get to it. Yeah. Let me ask you, where are the funds now that you would use to fund the charitable gift annuity?

They're in the, it's called total control account, there's $18,000 in it, it was from his life insurance. All right. Is that with MetLife by chance? Yes, it is.

Okay. And so you can't take that money out, so you could either continue taking that income stream from them, but they do give you the ability to transfer it into a charitable gift annuity, is that right? It's actually like a bank account. I can't put any money into it, it gets interest, and once I take it out, that's it. It's just like a savings account that's getting good interest. What is the interest that they're paying on that account? I don't know.

I think it's really good, it's $18,000, I'm getting like $25 a month. Yeah. That's certainly an option. I mean, these are, I think, great tools for folks that are looking for income, you'd get a partial tax deduction on that, so you can't take the full amount as a deduction, but you could take a partial deduction, and then they would give you the income stream, which you said is at a very attractive rate, they would invest it, but you don't take the risk on that, they guarantee those payments, and then whatever's left at the end of your life would go back to the charity.

So I think that's certainly an option. I think if the goal is charitable giving and income, then I think this is the best tool for you to use, but you are giving up access to these funds, and that's the only concern I would have is just whether you have depleted so much of your reserves that you really don't have any place to go if something comes out unexpected. So I realize we're solving for an income gap, and that's great. This would help you do that with a very attractive rate and accomplish some of your giving goals, but if you had something come up that you needed long-term care or you needed to buy a new automobile or something like that, I mean, do you have other liquid assets that you could tap into? I just have my IRA.

Okay, and how much is in that? Right now about $90,000. I have about $15,000 savings. Okay, and how much are you pulling out of the $90,000 a year?

I get, every other month, I get between $750,000 to $800,000. Okay. All right. And has that been declining? No, actually. It's been ever since I put it in several years ago. Okay, but I mean the principal balance, which is at $90,000 a day, has that been coming down? Yes. It's been going down. It was up at one time to over $100,000 and it's going down with the market and stuff. With the market, sure. Yeah. I mean, you're pulling a little bit more than I would suggest, although what you're pulling is probably based on what it originally was.

Not a whole lot more. I mean, at this level, I'd probably think about taking $600 every two months instead of $700 or $800, but I think you're in a reasonable range there. So I guess that's the only question is just would you lose peace of mind in no longer having access to that $18,000 or would you be comfortable trading that for the higher payout on that monthly income stream that you'd get through the CGA and then be able to use that to accomplish some giving goals down the road? If you're wanting to do some giving and get a guaranteed income stream, I think this is a great option. But if you'd have a little more peace of mind knowing that you still have that $18,000 to tap into, knowing that you'd lose control of that permanently, then I would say I'd probably just sit tight and maybe get whoever is helping you manage the $90,000 to help you pick some good stable investments, income generating that could also generate an income on that $18,000 to get your monthly income up and then you could give it away at death. I think those are really the two options. So I would just kind of pray and think through that, Kathy, as to which one would really help you accomplish your goals most effectively. I could go either way.

So I think it really just comes down to are you okay parting with that money or would you feel better knowing you have access to it? Thanks for calling. To Darian, Illinois. Hi, Joanne. Go right ahead. First of all, I just really want to thank you for the program. It's just incredible. I've learned so much over the years and I have a lot of years. But I have an easy question for you today. Okay.

Unlike softballs. A couple of weeks ago, I was in the car listening, so I couldn't write and of course didn't remember. I believe it was a woman who had mentioned that there's a credit card company, I think Visa, but that doesn't matter, that when they get their profits or what have you, it goes to charities, Christian charities, and they've just done millions of dollars over many years. And I do use the credit card for most of my spending because it's a good record keeper, but I do pay it up every month and I would like to know the name of the company again. I would love to change and have money go for something that is good for God and his kingdom. Oh, I'm so delighted you asked about that.

Yeah, absolutely. So one of our underwriters here at Faith and Finance is the Christian Community Credit Union and they have a rewards card that they call Cards That Give to Missions. And so with every purchase, you're helping to transform lives because for every dollar in purchasing using the card, a portion goes to missions and ministry projects and they've been able to give millions to God's kingdom through some incredible work literally all over the globe. There's no annual fee, there are cash rewards, and as you said, a portion of every dollar is donated to Christian causes you care about. So if you'd like to learn more, you can do that on their website at joinchristiancommunity.com. Again that's joinchristiancommunity.com. I hope that's what you're looking for, Joanne. Does that sound like it?

That's it. Thank you so much. God bless you and keep doing what you're doing. Well thank you, Joanne. Thank you for calling today and for those very kind remarks. Again, the website joinchristiancommunity.com and you're looking for the Cards That Give to Missions. We're going to take a quick break back with much more right around the corner.

Stay with us. My name is Kent and I'm a member of Christian Healthcare Ministries. I have a friend who actually has great insurance and she recently had a life-threatening experience and she was laying in the hospital bed afraid, not afraid for her life, but afraid of what her insurance would or would not cover.

And as a CHM member, I can honestly say I just never have that fear. I can't tell you the peace of mind that provides. Learn more about Christian Healthcare Ministries biblical cost sharing at chministries.org. We are grateful for support from Sound Mind 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 rollercoaster, 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, Sound Mind Investing has sought to offer financial wisdom for living well. Soundmindinvesting.org.

We're back. I'm Rob West and this is Faith and Finance. Thanks for listening today. Thanks for taking the time. As we head into our calls and questions, I want to take a moment to ask you if you've downloaded the FaithFi app.

You can use it on your desktop or your mobile device. All right, let's head to the phones. By the way, if you have a question, just call 800-525-7000. That's 800-525-7000.

All right, to Miami, Florida, Darlene, you're next on the program. Go ahead. Yes. Thanks for calling in. I just had a quick question.

If it's wise to use money from your 401k to pay off your mortgage, the mortgage is just about $26,000, is it wise to do that? Perhaps. So, let me ask a few questions. What is your age, if you don't mind me asking?

60 plus. Okay. And are you fully retired? No, no, no. I'm still working.

Yes. Okay. All right. And you've got about $25,000 left in the mortgage. If you were to continue on your current path, Darlene, how long would it take for you to pay it off without pulling any money out of the 401k? I think in 2033, I believe they say. Okay.

So, it's another 10 years or so away. And how much do you have in the 401k? Like $41,000 right now. All right. So, you'd have to deplete quite a bit of it.

And how long do you... Go ahead. Sorry. No, no, no, if I keep applying money to the principal, I put probably about 200, an extra payment every year.

And if I increase that to two payments a year, I would finish paying it off in 2026. Oh, okay. Well, that's a lot better. Do you have the ability to do that?

Yes, I do. Okay. Very good. And how long do you plan to work? I realize we don't know fully what the Lord has in store, but just based on what you know today, how long would you expect to continue to work?

I could keep working until, you know, maybe another five years or so. Okay. Very good.

Yeah. So, here's what I would say. I would rather you not pull the money out of the 401k because I'd like that to continue to grow. If your 401k is like everybody else's, it's down with the market. And so, when you pull that money out, you'd be locking in those losses. I'd rather you keep it invested in whatever mix of investments you have right now that hopefully is consistent with your goals and objectives and age.

And I'd let that recover over time. And I would set a goal to make sure that you pay it off as soon as you can, but at the very least that you'd have it paid off by the time you enter retirement. Because I want you to enter retirement without this mortgage payment because that's going to keep your expenses as low as possible. And so, if you could follow the plan you just described where out of current cash flow, you're sending those two extra payments a year, you've got this paid off in three years and you've still got two more years to work. So clearly, you're going to enter retirement debt-free, but you've still got 100% of that 401k left and whatever it's grown to because the market's recovered and you're continuing to add to it and you don't have the tax hit on the money coming out of the 401k, I think that would be my preference.

Thank you so much. One last question, I do have a credit card debt of perhaps $80,000. Should I use some of that money to pay that off or no? So did you say credit card debt of how much? Let's say $6,000.

Oh, $6,000, okay. What I would probably do is I would prioritize that extra money that you had each month on those credit cards first. Let's get those paid off and then as soon as those are paid off, let's switch to the mortgage.

I'd probably not pull out of the 401k for the reasons that I mentioned, but what I would do if I were you, Darlene, is contact my friends at christiancreditcounselors.org because without replacing those loans, we're not talking about taking out a new loan to pay them off, they can leave them right where they are, but they can get the interest rates reduced for you so that more of your monthly payment every month is going toward your principal reduction and that would be my preference on how you get that paid off rather than pulling out of the 401k and then as soon as that's done, then we switch to the mortgage and focus on that. Thank you so very much because the interest rates are astronomical. I would make that your priority right now. Well thank you so much for that, Darlene, and again the website is christiancreditcounselors.org.

Lombard, Illinois, Doug, go ahead, sir. Yes, a quick question. I'm taking care of my father's finances, he's 95 years old, and he is getting probably about $50,000 or $60,000 in RMDs every year and giving away maybe a third of that. If it makes sense from a tax perspective to move those monies or can I move those monies into a donor-advised fund of some kind and then draw out of that to try to reduce the taxation on it? No, you can't put it into a donor-advised fund, but you can do what's called a qualified charitable distribution, have you heard that term?

Yeah, yeah, I am familiar with that and we've tried that a little bit in the past with a bit of problems with the particular corporation we were working with, they didn't do a very good job of it, but anyway, I am aware of that. That's really the only way to do what you're describing and it's perfect for somebody in your dad's situation. He's got to take the RMD, he doesn't need the money, but he wants to give. Well the qualified charitable distribution takes the money straight from the IRA to the charity or your church or ministry, they get the full amount, there's no tax paid, it's not added to his taxable income for the year, and he gets to count it toward his required minimum.

So you wouldn't be able to use a donor-advised fund, but you could use a qualified charitable distribution and it will accomplish exactly what you're looking for. Okay thank you, appreciate that. Alright, you are welcome Doug, we appreciate your call today. Hopefully to Coeur d'Alene, Maria you'll be our final caller, go ahead. Hi, I just recently sold my house and I'm getting a check today for $408,000 and I have about four or five months before my next house is done and I wondered what I could do with that money to get as much as I can out of...

I'd put it in two online savings accounts at 4% interest plus, I'd look at Marcus, our Capital One 360, and as long as you don't go above $250,000 it'll be safe and liquid and you'll get a nice return while you're waiting. And that's going to do it for us today. I really appreciate your taking time to listen to this program and to committing the principles we talk about each time to your financial life. You see God's plan isn't difficult, but it does take discipline and I hope we can encourage you along the way as you listen to this program. Incidentally, if you've been helped by what you've heard here, would you mind helping us? This broadcast, the Faithfi app and the other great resources we provide wouldn't be possible without the financial support we receive from listeners like you. We offer a lot of our resources for free and even have a free version of the Faithfi app and that's only possible because of the generous gifts from listeners like you. If you're not yet one of our financial partners, but would like to be, would you visit our website, faithfi.com, that's faithfi.com and then click the give button to sign up. We'd certainly be grateful. In the meantime, please set an alarm on your phone and make plans to join us again next time. I'll be here and I hope you will be too for another edition of Faith and Finance. Faith and Finance is provided by Faithfi and listeners like you.