Why We Give

In Luke 21, Jesus says, Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them, for they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on. Hi, I'm Rob West. The story of the widow's mite is a great reminder of how God views giving.

But how should we view it? Howard Dayton is here today to help us with that. Then it's on to your calls and questions. 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. This is MoneyWise Live, biblical wisdom for your financial journey. It's always a special day when we welcome Howard Dayton back to the program. Not only is he the former host, but he's also founder of Compass, Finance is God's Way, and author of several books on God's financial principles. Howard, great to have you back. Oh, wonderful to be with you, Rob. Howard, I know after accepting Christ as your Savior and Lord, you soon faced a problem with generosity.

That's where I'd like to start today, and maybe you could tell us about that. Well, honestly, Rob, my first problem was I didn't want to give. Sometimes I'd give to appear spiritual, but my heart just wasn't in it. And all that changed when my business partner asked me to join him in the study of the Bible to find out what it said about handling money. We were blown away to discover God's Word contained more than 2,350 verses dealing with money and possessions. And guess what area of our financial life the Bible addressed more than anything else? Generosity. And there are literally hundreds of verses dealing with God's desire for us to be generous people. So I began to want to be generous and experience the joy of giving, but then I was frustrated by another problem, an unlimited number of needs and my limited resources. I mean, how could I decide where to give?

My church, the poor missionary efforts, Christian radio programs such as MoneyWise, and many other ministries needed financial support. Well, that's right. And, you know, we all face that dilemma wanting to give more, and that's a good posture to be in. It's a good attitude to have, wouldn't you say?

I sure would. You know, God evaluates our actions based on our attitudes, and I love John 3.16. It really reveals God's attitude toward giving. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.

And notice that sequence. Because God loved, he gave. Because God is love, he's also a giver. And he's the one that really set the example of generosity motivated by love. And an attitude of love in our giving is critical. 1 Corinthians 13.3 tells us, If I give all my possessions to feed the poor but do not have love, it profits me what?

Nothing. I mean, what could be more commendable than giving everything to the poor? But generosity without this attitude of love just isn't any benefit to the giver. Well, that's right. And Scripture shows us, Howard, as you know in several places, that attitude counts a lot more than the amount to the Lord. Isn't that right?

It sure is. I love in Matthew 23, Jesus is rebuking the Pharisees who were tithing, but from a legalistic point of view. And he says, Woe to you hypocrites, you have neglected the more important matters of the law. Justice, mercy, faithfulness. And when you think about it, the Pharisees had been careful to give the correct amount down to the last mint leaf in their garden.

But Christ called them out because of their attitude. He looks past the amount of the gift, and he looks to the heart of the giver. And this is really important because we can consistently give out of a heart filled with love only when we recognize that we're actually given to the Lord himself, Rob. And we see an example of this in Numbers 18, verse 24, talking about the tithes of Israel that they offer as an offering to the Lord. So it's just not giving to our church or a ministry or a needy person.

That's only charity. But if we give to the Lord, it becomes an act of worship. It allows us to express our love and gratitude to our creator, savior and provider. And whenever we put something in the offering plate, I really think we should go through the mental process of saying, Lord, this is a gift to you because of who you are and what you've done in my life.

Yeah, that's really helpful. Generosity is a hard attitude. And as you said, it's an act of worship. We'll continue to unpack this just around the corner. Our topic today with our favorite guest, Howard Dayton, is generosity. Why we give. We're going to continue to talk about this just after the break. Then it's on to your calls and questions.

800-525-7000. This is MoneyWise Live. We'll be right back. Welcome back to MoneyWise Live. Our guest today is Howard Dayton, founder of Compass. Finance is God's way. And Howard, we're talking today about generosity. This is a subject that I know you get pretty excited about. Isn't that right?

I sure do, Rob. I love to see people catch the vision of what giving with a proper attitude can mean not only to them, but it's infectious. I mean, it can mean a lot of people.

Well, that's exactly right. And as you said just before the break, we should give as unto the Lord. And I'd love for you to stay on this idea of attitude and talk about any other attitudes we should have about our giving.

Yeah, Rob. In addition to giving with love, we're also to give cheerfully. 2 Corinthians 9, verse 7 teaches, And Rob, it's interesting. The original Greek word for cheerful is hilaros, from which we get the English word hilarious. I mean, we're to be beside ourselves with joy over the area of giving. I mean, I harken back to my early walk with Christ, and I was thinking, when was the last time I saw hilarity in the pew when the offering plate was passed?

It kind of reminded me more of waiting in the dentist office as a patient or something like that. So how do we develop this hilarity in our giving? Well, we read in 2 Corinthians 8, verse 1, the account of the early churches in Macedonia. And Paul says, Out of the most severe trial their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. I mean, they were in the pits and suffering extreme poverty, but managing to give with overflowing joy.

And the answer is in verse 5, They first gave themselves to the Lord and then to us in keeping with God's will. The real key to cheerful giving is to yield ourselves to Christ. Ask him to direct how much he wants us to give, the places he wants us to give, and then we can just relax and experience the advantages of giving with the proper attitude.

Yeah, that's really helpful. You know, when we talk about giving, we see also in Scripture that there's blessing that follows. But I'd love for you to address what blessings we might expect when we give cheerfully with the right heart attitude and with love in our hearts. Robin, in my study of Scripture, I saw three key areas that we receive blessings when we give with the proper attitude, and the first is what I call an increase in intimacy. Above all else, giving directs our heart to Christ. Matthew 6, verse 21 tells us, And that's why it's so important to give each gift to the person of Christ. It draws our heart to him.

The second benefit or blessing is an increase in character. Our Heavenly Father wants us to be conformed to the image of Christ, and the character of Christ is that of an unselfish giver. Unfortunately, as you well know, humans are by nature selfish, and one way we become conformed to Christ is by regular giving. I love what someone once said, Giving is not God's way of raising money. It's God's way of raising people into the likeness of his Son.

Wow, that is so true. God certainly doesn't need our money. It all belongs to him, as we well know, but he wants our hearts to conform to that of Christ. What's the third benefit of giving? The third benefit, and by the way, I think this is huge, is an increase in heaven. Matthew 6, 20 tells us, Store up for yourself treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal. Although it's true that we can't take it with us when we die, Scripture tells us that we can send it along now to our heavenly account, and that is going to be something that we will be able to enjoy forever.

That's great. Howard, as you know, you got these calls when you were the host of this program. We get a lot of folks calling and asking, how should we approach the tithe? And I like to say, and I know the author Randy Alcorn has said, let's see tithing as the training wheels of our giving, but address this for us. How do we know how much to give?

Well, I love the training wheels description. And once again, we can look to Scripture, Rob. Even before the Old Testament law, there were two instances of giving a known amount. In Genesis 14, 20, Abraham gave 10 percent a tithe after the rescue of his nephew Lot. And in Genesis 28, verse 22, Jacob promised to give the Lord a tenth of all his possessions if God brought him back safely through his journey. Then came the law and the requirement of that law.

And this was clear, crystal clear for the Old Testament believer, Malachi 3, 8, and 9. Well, a man robbed God, yet you're robbing me. But you say, how have we robbed you? In tithes and offerings. So you're cursed with a curse. You're robbing me, the whole nation of you.

But here's what's interesting. In addition to the tithe, there were various offerings. And the Lord also made special provision for the poor. Every seventh year, all debts were forgiven.

Every 50 years, the land was returned to the original landowning families. Special harvesting rules allowed the poor to glean behind the harvesters. And God made another significant provision for the poor in Deuteronomy. It says, if there's a poor man with you, one of your brothers, you shall not harden your heart or close your hand from your poor brother, but generously lend him sufficient for his need in whatever he lacks. So even under the law, Rahab, the extent of one's giving wasn't limited to a fixed percentage, but really it was to be adjusted by the surrounding needs. And the New Testament teaches that we're to give in proportion to the material blessings that we receive, and it also commends sacrificial giving. Well, to be sure, the tithe is systematic.

It makes the amount to give very easy to compute. The danger of the tithe is that it could be treated as simply another bill to be paid. And if we fall into that kind of attitude or rut, we just won't be in a position to receive God's richest blessing. And I think another real potential danger of the tithe is the assumption that once we've tithed, we've fulfilled all our obligations to give. And for many believers in Christ, the tithe should be the beginning of their giving, the training wheels, as we said, not the limit.

And we should never, ever close our hearts to the obvious needs that we encounter in our path through life, especially these days with the pandemic and all that's happened because of that. So how much should each of you give? The answer to that is to first give yourselves to Christ, submit yourself to him, earnestly seek his will for you concerning giving, and ask him to help you obey what he leads you to do.

And I'm convinced that we should tithe as a minimum and then give over and above the tithe as the Lord prospers us or as he directs us. Well, Howard, this has been tremendous. I know it's a subject that you're passionate about, and you've really helped us to think about how we give, but more importantly, why we give. So we appreciate you sharing this with us today, my friend. Oh, my pleasure. Howard Dayton's been our guest today. You can find out more about Howard and his ministry at Compass, the number 1.org, Compass1.org. Your calls are next, 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. I'm Rob West, your host, and we'll be right back. Thanks for joining us today on MoneyWise Live.

I'm Rob West, your host. We've got some lines open. We're ready to take your calls in just a few moments on anything financial. We'll apply biblical wisdom to what you're dealing with in your financial life. Here's the number, 800-525-7000.

Lines are open, 800-525-7000. Just a moment ago, we were talking to my good friend Howard Dayton, former host of this program, founder of Compass Finances, God's Way, and this is an incredible topic. You know, if you think about it, the gospel story is a generosity story. So what if we were to start there? I believe we ought to begin with our giving. Let's not deal with our lifestyle and try to fit all the expenses in and then see if we have something left over. What if we were to say, we're going to reorder our finances and start with our giving? And you might say, Rob, I can't make ends meet as it is. Well, we might need to cut back.

You may need to make some changes. And you may not be able to start with a tithe, a tenth. But I would say, start somewhere. God sees your heart, and I think if you build in systematic giving at some level into your finances, not only will that get you into the habit of giving, but it'll begin to allow you to experience the joy that comes with holding what God has loosely, participating in his activities, and as the author Ron Blue and my good friend says, it will break the grip of money over our lives. You know, giving has a way of loosening money's grip over us if it has that in your life. So start somewhere, and then I think it's only going to be a matter of time before you're reordering your finances to do it even more.

But let's deal with that down the road. Just get started today, OK? All right, let's start to take some calls today. Here's the number again. 800-525-7000. We've got a few open, and we'd love to hear from you.

We're going to begin in Missouri today. Hello, Larry. How can I help you, sir? Oh, wow. Am I on the radio right now? Yes, you are. You go right ahead.

So cool. OK. I just wanted to ask, why am I working and wasting my life? Why am I giving hours that I will never give back for money just to live? Why is this the way it is?

Yeah, yeah. Well, it's a great question, and I think the starting point for acknowledging why we work is to recognize we were created to be workers, right? You remember Adam in the garden, in the perfect garden before sin entered the world, Adam and Eve were workers.

Their first, or one of their first, assignments was to name the animals. And so we're to be workers. You know, God is a creator, and we were created to be productive and to take God's creation and improve it and tend to the field and name the animals and improve the creation in such a way that it gives glory to God. And we experience the value of being productive.

That's just how God wired us. In fact, we see that all through the Bible that we are to be workers and to focus that way. I would reference Genesis 3 19, by the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread till you return to the ground.

For out of it you were taken, for you are dust, and to dust you shall return. So by the sweat of your face you shall eat, meaning we're to work. Paul says in First Thessalonians three, if anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. And then Colossians three is a seminal verse in this area. It says, whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men. And so I think the opportunity we have, Larry, is to take our gifts and our abilities and our passions, where those all intersect, and use those for God's glory.

But here's the key. We have to work and serve an audience of one, and that's the Lord himself. And so whatever you've been called to, do it as unto the Lord, which brings him glory. And that's our chief end, is to in fact work.

Now, as a result of that work and toil comes provision. It all comes from God, but through that work is a way that he provides for us through our employers, which gives us then the resources to not only give back to him and participate in his activity, but also to cover our needs, our expenses, provide for our families, which is also very biblical. So I think often we can get our priorities out of line and we can work only to achieve a certain status or to find value in our work as opposed to the Lord. And that's where we get it wrong, when we take our cues from the world. But if we go back to the biblical model of why we were created and to what end, and this idea that we're to be productive and that we're to do it as unto the Lord, it does change things quite a bit. And I think it reframes the whole idea of work for us. But give me your thoughts, Larry. Does that make sense?

It does. And it's very, how do I explain it? What you said is very true and very real. It's just, it seems as though me working is, seems to be a waste of my life. It seems to be a thing that does not give me happiness and I want to be meaningful in life. And it seems as though in order to continue that subtle happiness or contentness, I have to work and I have to do things that I don't want to do.

Yeah. Well, let me, let me reframe it this way. Perhaps I think you need to start as we all do on our knees and say, Lord, give me a vision for how I can be used right where you've planted me today. And as you go to work, don't look at it necessarily as the what you're doing, but the why and the how. How do you go about your day? How do you bring glory to the Lord in whatever task or service you're providing? And how can you use that in the relationships and the people you encounter to bring glory to God and perhaps even share your faith through being excellent with your customers and serving your vendors really well and looking for gospel conversations where you can share the love of Jesus and do what you do as unto the Lord, which brings him glory.

And that's enough in and of itself. So I would say ask the Lord to give you perhaps a fresh vision for why you're working and how he can use you right now. And we'll join you in that prayer. Larry, that's an exercise we all need to go through. I'm not just talking to you.

I'm talking to myself as well. But I appreciate your calling. I appreciate you asking an honest conversation or a question.

And I hope that God's word at least has shed some light on that today. And may the Lord bless you. Folks, a lot more ahead on MoneyWiseLive. We'd love to hear from you.

800-525-7000. Stay with us. We'll be back with much more right after this. We're grateful you're along with us today on MoneyWiseLive, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. I'm Rob West, your host. We've got some lines open.

I'd love to hear from you. Whatever's on your mind today financially speaking, we'll try to apply the biblical principles we learned from God's word to your financial situation. Here's the number 800-525-7000. That's 800-525-7000. Hey, if you haven't downloaded the MoneyWise app in your app store, I'd love for you to do that today.

Just search for MoneyWise Biblical Finance. Here's why. We've got a major update that's coming out next week. I'm really excited about it. In addition to a complete rebrand of the app itself, we're introducing two additional methods of managing your spending. Right now we have the digital envelope system where you fund your envelopes out of your checking or savings account based on your real-time balances. Then you automatically allocate your transactions to those envelopes so you can see what's left.

That's great, but for some people they say, I don't want to go that far. I just want to create a monthly plan and then I want to track against it. I want it to start over every month. So we're going to have that method of tracking your spending. Then we'll add a third, a track only option for those of you who say, I don't even want to create a plan. I just want to know where my money's going. I just want to track it by category and that'll be there. So you'll have the digital envelope system or the plan and track or the track only and you'll be able to switch between the three as you progress through those levels at any time.

I'm really excited about it. It's the only offering out there that allows you to have three different styles of managing your spending. So hopefully we can find one that fits your unique wiring and how you want to manage God's money. Here's the goal. We just want you to stay on top of it so you can be a better steward of what God has entrusted to you. So head over to your app store and then look for MoneyWise Biblical Finance and you can download it today. All right, we're going to head to the phones.

800-525-7000 and as in Homer Glenn, Illinois, WMBI. Go right ahead Anne. Hi, thank you for taking my call. So I'm excited to talk with you because you've given some advice in the past and I really appreciated it. And so this time it's a question of should we sell or continue renting a condo or take money out of assets from a stock market account to do what we are really wanting to do, which is pay down the principal on our primary home. Okay, very good.

Yeah, tell me the situation. Well, so we're coming close to the end of a lease with our condo that we're renting and we owe $32,000 on the condo. The market is at an all-time high. I didn't know if we should take advantage of selling during this time because in approximately 10 years my husband would like to retire. He is the primary earner in our family and we know that his job position is going to change soon. He is making a very good salary right now, but we have an unknown and that is what is he going to be making.

He's going from a contract position to he's merging to working for the company directly and they haven't had that conversation yet. So with that being said, we also have assets in the stock market and I am feeling a little leery about what is up ahead with the stock market. I didn't know if it's best to hold on to the condo because we don't seem to have trouble renting it and then we would have money coming in if we took money from the stock account and we paid off the condo. Then we would have that money to either save or put towards the primary mortgage. That's one scenario or we figured it might take as long as 19 years if we sold the condo at what we thought we can get for it in today's market. It might take 19 years for us to actually net that profit by renting it. So I'm just wanting your suggestions and your creative juices to help us out in kind of paving a path for us. Sure.

Well, I appreciate the background. Talk to me about the condo. You said you have not had trouble renting it out and when it's rented out, is it enough to cover the mortgage and give you a little bit of extra to either put aside for maintenance and repairs or provide some supplemental income?

Right. So that is a very good question and I can't give you an exact dollar amount, but the answer is no. It hasn't been able to cover all of that. What it has been able to cover is the mortgage and mostly everything that goes into the yearly costs, including the association fees.

We probably pay out of pocket on a monthly basis, no more than $50 to help cover those expenses. Now we have just, like I said, we're coming to the end of a year where the tenants are currently planning on moving out. So we are increasing the rent because we're trying to go with the times and we see where we can increase the rent costs, but we try to market it according to what the times call for.

Yeah, and rental prices are very high right now in addition to selling prices. I guess that's my perspective on it, is that if you all don't mind the work that goes into it, and obviously with a condo it's a lot less work than a single family home where you have kind of the surrounding area outside and have to deal with keeping up with a bit more, like the roof and the landscaping and all of that. With a condo it's a bit more self-contained and as long as your expenses are being covered, you have the opportunity to quote-unquote let somebody else pay off this mortgage for you and you keep your stock market assets intact, which as long as you've got a 10-year time horizon, is that kind of the situation or would his retirement be quicker than that? We're planning on approximately 10 years before he retires, but the thing is this past year he has been able to make in contract work a significant amount of money that has helped us to pay off all of our debt. And we know that this transition is going to be less money and we are wanting some, I guess you could say, financial margin which we don't think we will have if and when he makes this merge to working for the company directly.

With that being said, we thought about many different scenarios. We did recently refinance back at the beginning of this year and in doing so we refinanced for a 15-year mortgage loan and at that time all the fees they put into our mortgage, which was an additional $12,000. We were hoping to take the money that we received back from refinancing to put it down on the primary mortgage to help reduce it off the top, but we haven't been able to do that. And it's been a great blessing to have all of these outstanding balances be paid off because they've been hanging over our heads for some time, so we feel extremely blessed, but we also see where up ahead we might have some rocky road.

So we see the different scenarios that we have in front of us and in part I'm favoring taking money out of the stock market and putting that down to pay off the condo so that we have that again. Yeah. Sure. Okay.

Let's do this. We've got to hit a break, but I hear your situation. I want to weigh in with my final thoughts and I'll do that just on the other side of this break. Much more to come on MoneyWise Live. Stay with us.

We'll be right back. Thanks for tuning in to MoneyWise Live. I'm Rob West, your host, taking your calls and questions today on anything financial. Hey, before we go back to Ann in Illinois, let me remind you, we do what we do here on MoneyWise Live as a result of your faithful support. Would you consider a gift? We'd certainly be grateful.

You can head over to our website, MoneyWiseLive.org and just click the donate button and thank you in advance. Ann is in Homer Glenn, Illinois. Ann and she and her husband are wrestling with this idea of taking a highly appreciated condo and along with the rest of the housing market has done well.

They've had it rented out successfully. What they bring in through the rent covers the mortgage and the other expenses, give or take $50 on a given month. But they've got assets in the stock market wondering about the performance of the market moving forward and because of a change upcoming in her husband's working situation, wondering if it's time to pay off that mortgage. Ann, I guess I would say, you know, if you really have a conviction of being debt-free and it would give you a bit more peace of mind, especially given the uncertainty around your husband's change in job, you certainly could do that. And I would want to make sure you understand the tax implications depending on whether and what type of account this is coming from. But it would allow you to pay off that condo, know that it's free and clear, which would free up a little bit more money to allow you to hopefully throw off a little bit of income every month that you could use to replenish the money that you've taken out. And perhaps if you're right and the market pulls back, you're going to be reinvesting into the market in a time where you're buying more shares with the same amount of money because stocks would be a bit cheaper at that point. But this really isn't going to solve any shortfalls that you might have on a monthly basis as a result of your husband's reduction in work because you're not counting on this income right now. So if his job change is going to result in you all having to restructure your monthly spending, you know, other than perhaps this freeing up a bit more money that you could use to supplement that, you're going to have to make those changes anyway. So I really could go either way, you hanging on to the mortgage and letting your renters essentially pay it off over time and preserving your investment dollars.

Or because of this upcoming job change, if that little extra margin that you would have by not having to cover that mortgage each month would allow you to balance the budget and have a slightly more margin, then I think that makes a lot of sense to me. And using the stock assets, which by the way, are also highly appreciated, I suspect given what's happened in the market over the last couple of years, you know, that that can probably make some sense. Do you follow? Yes, I do. I appreciate it. Good.

All right. Well, I think that's at least what I hear in your voice is to say, you know what, we've got changes on the horizon. We feel like we're going to be squeezed a little bit because of his change. This would give us perhaps the margin we need.

And so I think for that reason, it makes a lot of sense. But we appreciate you listening and calling. Thank you for your kind remarks and let us know how it turns out. Let's head south to Florida. Hi, Eva.

How can I help? Hello. I have a question. It's about reamortizing a mortgage. OK. My husband wants to do that. We only have two years in the mortgage, but he says that he wants to get rid of the mortgage insurance. And the value of the house and all the market right now, it put the property in advantage. We could say because we got more equity in the house now that when we start. And he doesn't want to be nice because he says that is more expensive.

What are your thoughts on that? Well, typically you would only reamortize the loan when you're putting down a lump sum toward the balance. And then you want the payments recalculated based on the new lower principal balance. And typically the reason someone would do that is because they're trying to reduce their monthly payments. In this case, if all you're trying to do is recognize the appreciation that has occurred and drop the PMI, the private mortgage insurance. You know, if you can get an appraisal showing that the value of the home versus the mortgage at a 78 percent loan to value, a few percentage points below the 80 percent threshold, then they should pull that PMI off. As long as it's not an FHA loan, they should pull that PMI off automatically without a reamortization.

So I guess that would be my question is, why does he sense the need for a reamortization? He says that he wants to reduce the payment because he said when he gets old, he wants to be comfortable paying something. Right now, we pay extra every month. We pay extra. We pay extra $500 to the principal every month. Okay.

Well, that's good. And so reamortization really isn't going to help you because although the minimum would be lower, you guys are paying more than that anyway. And if you pay that lower amount, you're going to end up spending more in the way of interest. What is your current interest rate, Eva, on this mortgage?

It's 3.4, if I'm not mistaken. Okay. All right.

And you said you're only two years into it? Yep. And it's a 30-year mortgage? Yes.

Okay. Yeah, it's not going to make sense for you all to refinance that the cost is going to be prohibitive and you're not going to get enough in the way of interest savings. And I think given what he's trying to accomplish, you don't want to cut it to a 20- or 15-year mortgage because that's going to push the payment up considerably higher. So again, a reamortization is going to save you some cost because it doesn't involve a new loan and it's going to get that minimum payment down, but that's only going to help you if you get into a pinch. So yeah, you could certainly pursue that just so that minimum is lower, but I would say no matter what you do, whether you reamortize or not, I'd keep sending the extra money as you're able to now so that you can get that money going to principal and that's going to help you pay it off quicker and save interest over the life of the loan.

Whether or not you reamortize just as a function of whether or not you want that minimum payment lower than it is today. I hope that helps. We appreciate your call today. Aubrey is in Austin, Texas. Hi, Aubrey. How are you today? I'm doing great.

You go right ahead, sir. Hey, I'm a retired educator and my wife is also retired. She's 65 and I'm 71 and a half. We've lived on the 80-10-10 plan the 30 years we've been married and we recently sold a couple of rental properties and have an excess of $500,000 in assets from that. I also have 401Ks and 403Bs spread out about $400,000. My wife also has about 300 or 401Ks and we, with the grace of God, become debt-free and we're trying to figure out what to do with our resources now in terms of either investing, savings.

They're currently just in regular savings. Okay, yeah, very good. Well, I think that 80-10-10 has served you well for our listeners. What he's saying is that Aubrey and his wife have lived on 80% of their income.

They've given 10 and saved 10 and as a result of that, they've done quite well. You've obviously lived modestly. You've prioritized getting out of debt.

Those are all biblical principles and you're in a really strong position. So I think the next thing, Aubrey, is perhaps to visit with a certified financial planner. I'd recommend somebody who also has the Certified Kingdom Advisor designation to do some planning. And part of what a CKA will help you do is I think you're ripe to really define what is our financial finish line. How much is enough both in terms of lifestyle, which you probably already defined that because it sounds like you've been living modestly and I don't hear in your voice you're wanting to add a lot of overhead within a second home or anything significant there. And then how much is enough with regard to your balance sheet, meaning what is your ultimate savings goal now and down the road. And maybe you basically have that number in place and then it's just a matter of wisely managing that money moving forward, which I think that's where an investment professional could come in that builds a portfolio that recognizes, okay, you guys may not need much more. So therefore you can take not a whole lot of risk, be very conservative, but still try to seek a proper return on this money because with inflation, which has been climbing lately, you've seen that in the grocery store and in a variety of places, you're losing purchasing power on this money by just leaving it in a savings account. So the question is how should it be invested, not taking any more risk than you need to, but also recognizing it should be growing over time.

That's part of good stewardship. And I think the other thing that that financial finish line will tell you, Aubrey, is how much you have to give away. You know, you may find that you've over accumulated, maybe not, but you might have.

And if so, perhaps you could start to do some giving and really enjoy that in this next season of life. And so I think all that comes down to first planning. What is the plan moving forward? Are you overfunded?

Are you right on track or are you still behind? And then secondly, based on that plan, how should then you manage this money moving forward, including both what should be in emergency reserves and then beyond that, what should actually be invested and how? Does that make sense to you? Yeah, it makes a lot of sense that finding someone you can trust with all the scams going on, you know, the charlatans out there, we're kind of, you know, kind of conservative, very conservative. And we're just wondering, you know, someone we can trust. And so we won't end up losing what we've accumulated during this time to help God in his kingdom building.

Yes. Well, I totally resonate with that. And that's why we trust here at Money Wise Media, the Certified Kingdom Advisor designation. So this is going to be a professional both in the planning area and in the investment area that's met high standards, both in terms of experience, training and biblically wise financial advice, pastor and client references, a regulatory review, character, statement of faith, code of ethics. I mean, there's a lot there and that gives us peace of mind to know that this is a professional you can trust. So head over to our website, moneywiselive.org.

Click find a CKA and I'd interview two or three there in the Austin area to find the one that's the best fit for you. And we appreciate your call today, sir. May the Lord bless you as you seek to be found faithful with his resources. Mary Ann, you stand the line. I know you've been holding patiently. I want to get to you off the air. Unfortunately, we're out of time today.

Money Wise is a partnership between Moody Radio and Money Wise Media. So thankful for our friends at Moody. Want to say thank you to Deb and Amy and Jim today. Thank you for being here as well. Come back and join us tomorrow. Will you? I'll be here. We'll see you then. God bless you.