Redeeming Money

This is Jamin Baxter and I serve as Business Development Director for Moody Radio. The only reason we're able to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ on the radio is because of financial support from listeners like you. We also have businesses support us too, like United Faith Mortgage.

Faith and family is at their core. It's why they choose to be such a close partner with our station. It's why they specifically advertise on Christian radio stations across the country.

It's why father and son John and Ryan still lead the company to this day. Check out United Faith Mortgage and their direct lender advantage at unitedfaithmortgage.com. Thanks to you and to United Faith Mortgage for supporting Moody Radio. United Faith Mortgage is a DBA of United Mortgage Corp. 25 Melville Park Road, Melville, New York. Licensed mortgage banker. For all licensing information, go to nmlsconsumeraccess.org, corporate NMLS number 1330, equal housing lender.

Not licensed in Alaska, Hawaii, Georgia, Massachusetts, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Utah. This is Jamin Baxter and I serve as Business Development Director for Moody Radio. The only reason we're able to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ on the radio is because of financial support from listeners like you. We also have businesses support us too, like United Faith Mortgage.

Faith and family is at their core. It's why they choose to be such a close partner with our station. It's why they specifically advertise on Christian radio stations across the country.

It's why father and son John and Ryan still lead the company to this day. Check out United Faith Mortgage and their direct lender advantage at unitedfaithmortgage.com. Thanks to you and to United Faith Mortgage for supporting Moody Radio. United Faith Mortgage is a DBA of United Mortgage Corp. 25 Melville Park Road, Melville, New York. Licensed mortgage banker. For all licensing information, go to nmlsconsumeraccess.org, corporate NMLS number 1330, equal housing lender.

Not licensed in Alaska, Hawaii, Georgia, Massachusetts, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Utah. Colossians 2, 8 warns, see to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world and not according to Christ. I am Rob West.

Our view of the world shapes our lives, especially how we manage money. I'll talk about that today first with Paul David Tripp. Then it's on to your calls at 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. This is MoneyWise Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. Well, our guest today is Pastor Paul David Tripp. He's the author of more than 30 books and videos on Christian living. And one of his most recent is Redeeming Money, How God Reveals and Reorients Our Heart. Paul, welcome to the program. Thank you.

It's great to be with you. Well, I've got to tell you, I've been reading your books for a long time. And then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, I was so excited to see one on money and it's deeply impacted me. I would go as far as to say everyone listening to this program needs to read this book because, Paul, you've hit on something that I've talked about for a long, long time, and that is money issues are heart issues.

And if you don't understand that, if you don't begin there, you've missed it according to God's Word. Is that really one of the key things that led you to write this? Absolutely. It's money problems are not actually money problems. They're heart problems that reveal themselves as money problems. So, yeah, that's it.

Yeah. The late Larry Raquette used to say money is the clearest indicator or the way we handle it into what's going on in someone's life spiritually, because how we handle our money reveals what we value, where we've placed our trust. It tells us what's important to us.

And so we have to begin there. And I know you talk a lot about identity. What is it about identity and money that we need to understand? So the Bible assigns to us these four identities, creature, sinner, suffer, saint. They have everything to do with money.

Let's start with creature. Money really does define how you think about who you are. Sinner, where does your use of money expose your need for heart change? Suffer, where's your evidence of your use of money that, I mean, you doubt the goodness of God, you've taken your money life into your own hands. And then saint, how has your money life been shaped by the blessing of knowing that you're one of God's saints, you're one of God's children? So some way you're always living in your money world out of those four identities, whether you know it or not.

Yeah. And that's a really big idea, which also says, Paul, that, you know, fixing our money problems, if we're in a money mess, yeah, we need a budget, but it's so much bigger than that. And it really has to begin with our heart because we can't solve these problems related to money with more money, right? Well, that's a mistake of a lot of the emphasis of money, even Christian emphasis of money. If the rules of a budget could solve your money problems, Jesus would have never had to come. The cross teaches us there's something deeper that's broken. And unless I get at that, I won't solve my money problems. Yeah, that's exactly right. So how would you then articulate, as you've read the Council of Scripture and meditated on these literally thousands of passages that deal with money and possessions, how would you articulate then a biblical worldview of money?

So, you know, there, there are four, four things that I think are just so important to let shape the way you, uh, approach money. One is in the center of the world is this God of uncalculable glory. Uh, the glory I was meant to live for is not the glory of physical things, not the glory of the amount of treasure in the bank, but for the glory of God. That, that just changes everything.

Yes. The Bible tells us also that the world is terribly broken by sin, that a sin is deceitful and seductive and, um, controlling. And so one of the ways that, that money gets us in trouble is it becomes an idol for us that distorts the way we live. We also know that God offers us his, his amazing life transforming grace. So I, I don't have to hide my money problems.

I can come to him and confess those. And then finally, we're, we're called to live for something bigger than our own pleasure. We're called to live for God's kingdom and that all those things change the way that you approach this thing called money. Paul David Tripp is our guest today. His book is called Redeeming Money, How God Reveals and Reorients Our Hearts. More to come just after this break.

Stay with us. Thanks for joining us today on MoneyWise Live. Our guest today is Paul David Tripp, author of Redeeming Money, How God Reveals and Reorients Our Hearts. And Paul's really offering some fresh insights about how we should view and handle God's money. And, and I'll tell you, this book has deeply impacted me. I would say everyone needs to read it. And in fact, we believe that so strongly we're making it available as a gift from MoneyWise with every donation of at least $25 between now and December 31st.

Just go to MoneyWiseLive.org and click the donate button. And again, we'll get a copy of this book right out to you. Paul, just before the break, we were talking about this idea of money being so connected to our hearts. And really if we understand a biblical worldview, it changes how we view and handle God's money. You encountered a passage in Ephesians that you believe changed everything for you. And I'd love for you to unpack that a bit for us today.

So, so if I could start with a helicopter view first. The Bible is the world's best generosity story. It's God's generosity is on every page of scripture.

It could be summarized by nine words, for God so loved the world that he gave. You don't understand the biblical story unless you understand it's a generosity story. And that comes down to the way that we think about our work and our money. Ephesians 4 28 says this, let the thief steal no longer, but rather let him labor doing honest work with his own hands. Now I would expect that it would say next so that he can provide for himself and his family.

But that's not what it says next. Doing honest work with his own hands, now check this out, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Paul is saying the purpose for your money is not first to provide for you and your family. The purpose for your money first, the primary purpose is so that you can be part of God's grand generosity agenda. That just changes everything.

It really does. And I think it's such a critical and foundational idea that you've hit on here, Paul, because we tend to start there with provision. The challenge is, when we begin with provision, we can end up with an endless list of needs and wants that never allows us to move beyond that into generosity, which you said is clearly at the heart of what God wants for us. And that's exactly why Paul says what he says.

He's flipping the game on us. Here's God's plan. God makes his invisible generosity visible by sending generous people to give generously to people who need generosity.

There it is. And so immediately, once I'm his child, I'm an ambassador then of his generosity. That's the purpose of the money that he puts in my hands primarily. And he has promised, as I give myself to that generosity mission, he will provide for me. Matthew 6 says we have a heavenly Father who knows what we need. Now that's good for us because we, let's say, let's admit it, we get needs and wants confused all the time.

Well, we sure do. And I love what you're talking about here related to God's generosity story. You know, we talk a lot about the fact that if something's going to compete with the Lord for first position in our lives, it's most often, we see in Scripture, going to be money. You cannot serve both God and money.

When we look at the parable of the sower, the way I read it, two and a half, maybe out of the three reasons Jesus gives for the word being choked out was the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, the desires for other things. And what we also understand is that giving generosity is what calibrates our hearts to the ultimate giver. And it literally breaks the grip of money over our lives. As you process the opportunity to participate in God's activity through giving, Paul, what do you believe that act does to our hearts that really changes everything about how we view our money? Well, you know, the thing that we all struggle with, Paul says, is that we live for ourselves. Jesus came, he says, so that we would no longer live for ourselves. It's the selfishness of sin. I'm an endless vat of wants and needs and feelings. And it's so hard for me to get beyond me. And so when God gives me a grander, greater vision, he's not just taking money from me.

This is so important. In love, he's liberating me from my bondage to me. And that's the best way to live, because I was created to live for something bigger than me. And when I do that, there's contentment and satisfaction and joy that you won't find any other way. So a call to generosity is actually a welcome to the good life.

It sure is. Paul, I know you've written a lot on marriage and relationships. Let's apply this to the marriage relationship. Because, you know, when we hear from folks on this program that say, we've got a breakdown in communication over money, it's not working. And we then step back and say, first and foremost, this is a heart issue. And you need to get a vision for where God is taking you as a couple and see money as a tool to accomplish that.

It changes everything. Take everything you just described about money in our hearts and apply it then to how we need to interact as a married couple. Well, I think this is what we're talking about right now is the only solution, because often what you have is this endless debate between two different purposes for money. Wife says, this is the way I think about our money.

Husband says, this is the way I think about our money. And they don't have a higher agenda to solve the debate. And so it's just an endless, endless battle. And it begins to break down their love and their intimacy with one another. When I say that there's a bigger agenda, there's this generosity agenda, then there's something both of us can sign on to, both of us can submit to. There's a greater, deeper level of unity that we can enjoy that then allows us to be on the same page in the way that we think about our use of money and budget, our needs and the greater needs that God has called us to be involved with. Yeah, well, that's exactly right. Because it does, in fact, then change everything.

It's no longer about, I get to do this and you get to do that. It's about what is God doing in our lives? And how can this tool of money be aligned with his purposes for us to be able to be connected to God's activity in the world? I love this visual, Paul, of not being a bucket where God's provision stops with us, but in fact, being a pipeline where we're connected into God's activity, which is where real joy is found, right?

Absolutely. It's just our Lord wants us to thrive. He loves us. And so this is a thriving life. As much as we think that keeping it all and spinning on us is the good life, it's not the good life. And so I think one of the things I want to say is that you have to understand that the money in your pocket is a visual picture of a spiritual warfare that's taking place in your heart. Where is that war taking you?

What lives in control of your heart? Who's winning that battle of who will set the agenda for your life and who won't? And every time you look at a dollar, you ought to think, God, am I surrendering not just this dollar, but everything in my life to the greater, better agenda that you have for me? Wow, that is powerful.

Unfortunately, we're out of time, but we're going to have to have you back to talk more about this. Paul, thank you for some refreshingly wonderful insights about how we should view and handle our money. God bless you, sir. Thank you.

It's so much fun to be with you. Our guest has been Pastor Paul David Tripp, author of Redeeming Money, How God Reveals and Reorients Our Hearts. You can get a copy with a minimum donation of $25 to MoneyWise from now until December 31st.

Just click Donate when you visit MoneyWiseLive.org. Your calls are next. Stay with us.

We'll be right back. Thanks for joining us on MoneyWise Live. I'm Rob West, your host, and boy, what a powerful interview with Paul David Tripp today. You know, I did the interview, and I've already listened to it now three times.

I would encourage you to do the same. It was so rich. There was so much there that I believe you need to hear it more than once. A great way to take advantage of that is to head over to our website, MoneyWiseLive.org, MoneyWiseLive.org, and you'll see there featured on the homepage is this interview with Paul David Tripp so you can listen again, whether it's on your smartphone or on your desktop, perhaps over this coming weekend, whatever it might be.

I love this picture he painted right there at the end. There was so much, but right there at the end he said, you know, that dollar in your pocket is a picture of the war that's raging between who is ultimately controlling your life. Is it your flesh that's dictating where your money's going, or is it connecting to God's bigger agenda for your life in celebrating his glory and his generosity story? And perhaps money is the most tangible evidence of how that war is going.

And if we see money that way as a tool to accomplish God's purposes, then perhaps everything changes. Well, that's one of the themes we want to explore here day in and day out on this program, and I'm so grateful for Paul David Tripp to help us do that today. Also, as I mentioned, if you'd like to pick up a copy of the book Redeeming Money, which I would highly encourage, a great way to do that is by making a gift to MoneyWise Media. We rely on your gifts for what we do, and between now and the end of the year we're going to send you a copy of this book with a minimum donation of $25. So just head over to our website, MoneyWiseLive.org.

You can click the donate button and we'd be delighted to put it in the mail. All right, we're going to start to take some phone calls today. We'd love to hear from you, whatever's on your mind today, whether it's one of the themes that Pastor Paul David Tripp explored or something else.

Perhaps it's saving or giving. Maybe you need to know how to get out of debt or look toward retirement. Whatever's on your mind today, we'd love to hear from you. We've got some lines open. Here's the number 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. In just a moment, we'll be in Midway, Florida with Alonzo, but first Jane is in Chicago, Illinois, and Jane, good afternoon. Hello, how are you?

Very well. Thank you for taking my call. Sure.

Mike, hello? Hi, go right ahead. Okay, thank you for taking my call. My question is, I'm not eligible for full retirement until May, but I am 65. My hours got cut at work, so I'm going to take my social security, but I wanted to know if I should take my husband's survivor benefits or if I should take the benefits that I'm entitled to for my family.

Yes, that's a great question. As you probably know, you're entitled to the higher of either of them. However, I would say, Jane, if you can get by by taking your husband's survivor benefits, I would do that. If you start taking your own benefits a year or two early, it could lower your benefit by as much as 16% permanently, probably more likely 8% if it's a year early. Since you're not yet at full retirement age, the survivor benefit will be reduced until you reach that age at which time you would get the full survivor benefit. At that time, then you can compare the benefit to what you would receive from your own work record, and again, you'd be entitled to take the higher of the two. But by taking the survivor benefit, if again it meets your need right now, based on those cut in hours, then it could allow your own benefit to grow, and there's the likelihood, possibility at least, that that benefit will be higher when you evaluate the two. And then, of course, you would either continue taking the survivor benefit if it's more, or you could move over to your own. But I think that would be one approach. Does that make sense to you? It does. Someone told me I should take the survivor benefit the survivor until I'm almost 70, and then mine would probably be higher than his.

I don't know what either one of these are yet. I have an appointment with Social Security coming up. Okay, very good. Yeah, and that's certainly another approach as well, because that would allow yours to continue to grow, and then you could have the option to switch over. I'm glad to hear you say you have an appointment, because they're great to work with. They'll actually pull your actual work record, your high 35, so you can compare what your actual benefit is projected to be both now at full retirement age, and if you delay beyond full retirement age, and compare that to what you're entitled to for survivor's benefits early and at full retirement age, and it will become pretty clear which direction you need to go. But you do have this flexibility of allowing one to continue to grow, taking one now, and then switching. I think the key is just making sure that that budget will balance in the short term, so you can cover your obligations. I have the other question was I'm going to keep working, because I do like what I do, but they were saying something about I have to pay a dollar for every two dollars I earn, and I was wondering like how that all works. I know there's a limit I can make until then, but now do I get that money back like in the end, or does that go to the government, or is it taxable, or you know like what happens to that dollar that I'm going to end up giving them?

Yeah, yeah it's a good question. So prior to full retirement age, you are going to be limited to roughly eighteen thousand dollars, a little bit more than that in earnings, at which point beyond that you would be reduced a dollar for every two dollars you earn. At that point that is temporary, so that reduction you actually get that money back after full retirement age, they'll kind of add it to your check over time until they've repaid you for everything that you lost. So it's not a permanent reduction, it is temporary, but obviously it you know it will impact you and you need to factor that into your planning. So as long as you're aware of what it is, again it's something that you will eventually get back over time and once you reach full retirement age, Jane, you won't have to worry about that anymore, you're free to earn as much as you'd like. So I'm confident you'll sort all of this out in your upcoming meeting, but hopefully this at least gives you some things to think about as you're kind of preparing for that meeting.

And the key I think as you move forward is to just really have a clear understanding of what is your monthly need, both the fixed expenses, those things you get a bill for, and the discretionary spending which is what has a tendency to get away, and having a budget in place and then a plan to control the flow of money in and out is really really key. So we appreciate your call today, thank you for listening and all the best in the days ahead. Well a lot more to come on MoneyWise Live including perhaps your call. Here's the number 800-525-7000.

800-525-7000. This is biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. I'm Rob West, we'll be right back. We're grateful you're with us today on MoneyWise Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions.

In just a moment we're going to head back to the phones. Carlos wants to know about long-term care insurance, Vicki's asking about taking a portion of the tithe and using it for her mission trip, and Alonzo wants to know how to pay off some credit card debt. Before we get to Alonzo's question though, we've got a big update to the MoneyWise app coming next week and I'm really excited about it. Not only a brand new look and feel to the app that's going to be really elegant and make it really easy for you to use, but beyond that we're introducing what will be the first money management app that will allow you to choose between three styles of managing your spending and tracking your expenses. We've got the tried and true digital envelope system, I'll say for the pro users, those people who want to be always in sync to their checking and savings accounts, taking those balances and funding envelopes and then automatically applying transactions to reduce those balances to stay on top of exactly what's available. I think it's the best approach, but for some people, and we've heard from you, you've said, you know what, that's just a little bit more than I have time to do right now.

I want to get there, but I'm not ready for it. So we're introducing alongside the digital envelope system two other ways to track your money. One is what we call plan and track, where you create your budget in the app and then your transactions are downloaded from all of your institutions automatically and you just track against it so you can see how you're doing month to month against your budget. Are you over?

Are you under? And it can be a great source of information and then kind of the easiest approach, which may be a starting place for some of you, is track only. So we're not even going to ask you to create a budget, we're just going to download your transactions for you and categorize them so you can begin to see where your money is going.

And the great thing is you can switch between the three approaches at any time, track only, plan and track, or the digital envelope system. All that and much more in our major update is coming next week to the MoneyWise app. So go ahead and download it now so you'll be ready when it launches. Head over to your app store, search for MoneyWise Biblical Finance.

You can download it today and look for the update next week. All right, let's head back to the phones. Midway, Florida. Hello, Alonzo. How can I help you, sir?

Good afternoon. I thank you for taking my call and I thank God for you and this radio station for helping people like me. My question is, I, about five years ago, God bless me and my wife, to build a brand new home. And after we built this home, you know, of course we had to furnish it. So I ended up getting myself in a lot of debt, you know, like every credit card came through the mill. I accepted it and wanted it so I can get things into the home and do things with and, you know, and as well as loans. So now I'm here in heels with credit card debts and loans and I don't have a savings account where with all of this debt, I had to take a part time job and I'm seems like I'm not making no league way of trying to pay off all these credit cards and these loans and I don't have any way of saving any money and I'm getting ready to hopefully retire either at three years at 62 or 65. So I just need to know what is it better for me to try to pay these credit cards off myself or get credit counselor and also when I pay a credit card off, do I need to close it because I don't want to use these credit cards no more.

I'm afraid if I have them, I will still be exposed to them and use them. So can you help me out with that? I can, Alonzo, and I appreciate your transparency and can certainly understand the situation that you're in. You know, I think the first thing is really to make sure that you have a proper biblical view of money and understand this is God's money and you're the steward of it, just like me. I'm the steward of it, just like I am of what God has entrusted to me and we're all going to make mistakes along the way and that's why Jesus came to redeem that and to, you know, die on the cross to pay the penalty for our sin. We can lay all of those mistakes at the foot of the cross but we do need to purpose ourselves to really move forward after we've kind of allowed that to be turned over to the Lord in making the decisions that align with His heart for the resources that have been entrusted to us, which means we've got to make sure that we've got a plan to allocate our money that's in line with God's heart for where we're headed as a couple and as a family, that, you know, our spending is reined in so we can live within our means and give generously. And I realize that may seem far from where you are today but I think having that vision of where you're going is really key. Once you do that and you have that budget in place and you and your wife have committed to stick through to that, then clearly we want to get this debt paid off as quickly as you can. Let's talk about how to do that. Let me ask you first though, if you just pay the minimums on all these credit cards, do you have anything at all left over at the end of the month?

I have a little bit. The thing that kind of bothers me is that I am a pastor of a church and I do pay my tithes and I do pay my offerings. So with that, making sure that God do get His tent, make sure that I pay God up front regardless of what I don't have. I am Lord to the Lord in my tithes and my offering as being a pastor because I can't preach nothing to the people that I'm not doing. So after I do all of these things, my wife is good on her part but on my end, I'm the one who got myself in this pickle. So probably after I finish paying all of my bills and my tithes and everything, I may have $70, $80 left after paying all of my minimum.

I try to pay like $5 or $10 more than my minimum when I'm paying my credit cards. Very good. Well, I'm delighted to hear, Alonzo, your conviction around giving. I certainly can understand as you teach the flock, you want to be aligned with your teaching and not have a misalignment there and I would affirm that absolutely even in the situation that you're in that you continue to give systematically to the Lord. In terms of the best way to approach this debt, I'm going to encourage you to look first to credit counseling. It will accomplish two things, both of which you mentioned. One is your concern that if these cards are still available that they may get used for something that's kind of outside of the plan that you've established for your monthly spending. Credit counseling is going to require that all these accounts get closed on the front end. So as soon as they go into credit counseling, they can no longer be used. I think that's a good thing. The second thing is the interest rates will be reduced significantly for most if not all of them and you'll have one level monthly payment that you'll work through with your credit counselor and they'll make sure that that fits into your budget and because that payment is level, it doesn't go down as the balances go down, that combined with these lower interest rates for these accounts that are in credit counseling should allow you to pay this off on average 80% faster. So I think this is the right approach.

It doesn't factor into the credit score, although it will likely be noted on your credit report, but that's the least of my concerns right now. I want you and your bride to get out of debt once and for all and never find yourself in this position again. My friends at christiancreditcounselors.org, Alonzo, would be delighted to help you. These are wonderful believers. This is their ministry in addition to the fact that they've helped literally thousands and thousands of Christians just like you get out of debt.

So let's start there. Visit them today. christiancreditcounselors.org. Set up a free appointment just to walk through all of this and let's see if that isn't the very best way for you to get this 22,000 knocked off and then once it's gone, give me a call back and let's celebrate together. Alonzo, we appreciate your call today. Folks, much more to come on Money Wise Live.

Stay with us, we'll be right back. If you haven't visited the new Money Wise Live website, I'd love for you to do that. Check it out at moneywiselive.org. In particular, check out all the great content featured on our homepage today as three tips in biblical wisdom for navigating healthcare costs, a replay of the interview we started with today with Paul David Tripp, a great article about couples and money, and a video from David Green of Hobby Lobby, CEO of Hobby Lobby, where he shares his approach to business and generosity in light of eternity. David Green is just a giant of the faith and I know you'll be encouraged by what he shares.

A video from our partners at Gospel Patrons. It's all there at moneywiselive.org. And by the way, jump into the community while you're there and perhaps you might want to post a question in our community forum. Our Money Wise coaches who are trained volunteers, biblical financial counselors are ready to jump in and weigh in on your situation. That may be just the place for you to ask the question that you have today. It's all in the Money Wise community.

All of that is at moneywiselive.org. All right, we're going to head back to the phones today. Vicki is in Youngstown, Ohio, WCRF. Hi Vicki, how can I help you?

Hi, yes, thank you for taking my call. I just started a new job and I wanted to start out right and wanted to have a budget and wanted my first route to go to the Lord. And in terms of the tithe, I didn't know if 10% tithe could be like divided up 5% of the local church and the other 5% to the money that I saved to go on foreign missions trips, if that was okay to do since it's all going to God, or should I still make sure to do that first 10% to the local church and then above that would be to save permission? Yeah, well it's a great question Vicki, and I think at the end of the day it's really between you and the Lord. You know Pastor JD Greer who you hear on this radio station at Summit Church in North Carolina calls giving to the local church God's plan A. You know that was the local church was God's design for carrying the gospel to the world and for believers coming together and then going out to share the love of Christ. And you know I think giving a tithe which by definition means a tenth to the local church systematically based on our increase is a great beginning point for our giving and clearly we're to be about funding the work of the local church where God has planted us.

Now whether you decide to kind of back that down and split that, I mean I realize these are all good things. We don't want to get legalistic about it. This is not the Old Testament law. Jesus came and we now have the law of Christ and so we should give generously. We should give as a reflection of gratitude for what he's done for us on the cross. I think it's an act of worship and it should be I think systematic but then beyond that sacrificial and even spontaneous. Now how you order that in your own finances I think is something you just ought to think and pray through about but for me I would affirm the idea that you'd give systematically a tenth to the local church as a beginning point and then you give sacrificially beyond that. But again I think as you pray and think through that if you feel led to do something different than that the Lord knows your heart and ultimately you know I think it's a matter of us giving cheerfully to him as opposed to trying to check a box and you know do something out of compulsion because certainly the Lord doesn't want that.

Does that make sense to you? Oh yes I just wanted to like I didn't know if it was the 10 percent was supposed to go to the local church that's what I always thought and heard you know and then anything above that was for whatever else. Yeah and I think that's the thinking about doing. Yeah I think that's a great approach that's certainly the approach that we take and but again at the end of the day that's between you and the Lord you know so often when we give to the local church that should include missions because you know one of the functions of the church is to have you know missions activities both locally and even beyond that but I realize there may be a specific trip or something that you're working toward for you or your family and you know there's competing priorities all over the place so I think just as a simple approach I would say give a tenth to the church and then give beyond that for other things including what the Lord may lay on your heart even spontaneously but at the end of the day I would just kind of pray through it decide where the Lord is leading and then operate out of that conviction. I hope that's helpful to you Vicki we appreciate your call today.

Let's head south to Miami Florida excuse me Miami Springs. Hi Carlos how can I help? Hi hello I've been a listener since the 90s and thanks to your program and thank God and your program I was able to retire at 51. Now my question to you is does it behoove me to get long-term care or can I use my investments especially an annuity that I have for that and the other question is should I wait till 72 to no 70 to get my social security my regular retirement social security age will be 66.

Yeah yeah very good well I'm delighted to hear that you've been a recipient of the wisdom that's been shared on this program well before me because if you were listening in the 90s that was Larry Burkett and then Howard Dayton after that and I walk in the shoes of some giants of the faith with those two men there's no question about it but it's God's wisdom that you were able to apply not any of ours and that's why you're receiving the the blessing that comes with that. As to long-term care what is your age Carlos and then what do you have in liquid investable assets? I just turned 63 and liquid I have a Roth IRA I have a regular IRA I have an annuity and I have a 457B plan okay which and everything is highly highly aggressive except the annuity. Okay and all in what would you say the total of those accounts is roughly?

If we a little over a million and something okay a million and a half a million and a half and something. Sure very good well you know as you are well aware long-term care costs you know are continuing to rise and you know if there's something that's going to erode your assets in this season of life it's you know most likely going to be the need that you have for long-term care. You know if you look at you know what the costs are depending on what type of care you need you know you're talking about you know a couple of thousand dollars a month to as much as you know seven or eight thousand dollars a month depending upon what type of care you know in-home care can run you five thousand a month and nursing home care can run you nine thousand a month so you know that can add up. Now on average most folks don't need that more than two or three years but it is meaningful so if you have the ability to get a long-term care insurance policy with an inflation rider that would give you a you know a daily benefit that would help to offset some of those costs I think that would be well worth the money that you spend just given the fact that 70 percent of 65 year olds and older will need some form of long-term care if you can build it into the budget you know that could run you four thousand plus dollars a year for the premium but again if you have a need for it you know it could really help to offset eroding these assets so you have more to give away and ultimately perhaps even pass on to your heirs you're at a you're at a good age Carlos to look at this I think between 55 and 65 is the time to do it so I would check it out I mean clearly you're kind of right there on the bubble where you know you could probably self-insure in this area but you know with a million and a half dollars it's a lot of money there's no doubt about that but you could go through that in a hurry and go through that in a hurry if you needed you know nursing home care for an extended period of time so I think I could go either way with it but you know I think the data would be on the side of picking up a policy that would help to give you some peace of mind and offset this cost in that season of life as to whether you should wait to take social security until age 70 you know there's a good case Carlos that if you're in good health that you should and if you don't need the money you can let that continue to grow by eight percent a year and as long as you live long enough which you know is going to be probably into your 80s you'll be able to recoup what you gave up between full retirement age and age 70 and then you'll enjoy that higher check for the rest of your life so unless you need that money I think there's a great case to be made for you waiting give me any questions you have on either of those okay the question is if I were to choose I don't have any heirs you know I'm single and I have like eight cats that's about it so anyways and I contribute to my chairs to other organizations but the thing is if I choose to go with a long-term care I've heard said that you should choose a high deductible because usually the stay in a nursing home is like two three years so and in order to get a lower premium yeah well usually what you the way you do that is what's called a waiting period before the policy kicks in so you might have a 30 60 or a 90 day waiting period where you would fund that out of pocket until it kicks in and then there's a daily benefit that you would get so you can kind of use those elements to to get that premium down especially since you have the ability to cover that out of pocket so I get a long-term care insurance agent that's a real specialist in this area who could help you understand kind of the pieces and parts of what makes up that premium and ultimately come up with the policy that's the right for you the right thing for you so we appreciate your call today Carlos thank you for checking in with us Jeff is in Indianapolis Indiana and Jeff I don't have time to get you right now but if you hold the line we'll talk to you off the air I want to make sure to give you all the time you need to get your question asked so if you'll hold the line there Jeff I'll get to you in just a moment folks that's going to do it for us today you know we've covered a lot of ground we started with the Paul David trip today and talking just about our money and our hearts you know as we say often on this program money or the way we handle it is the great revealer of the heart it tells where we've placed our trust what's important to us and what we value ultimately are we trusting in the Lord and what about this war that's raging with our dollars as to whether we're going to give in to the desires of the flesh or are we going to use money as a tool to accomplish God's purposes that's something we all need to think and pray and meditate on just to be sure our hearts are aligned with his and that money isn't competing with the Lord for first place in our lives we're so thankful for you being with us today I'm also thankful for my team that helps me do what we do Dan and Amy and Gabby T and Jim we'll look forward to having you back with us on Monday in the meantime enjoy church and we'll see you then