Revisiting the Tithe & Offering

Today's version of MoneyWise Live is prerecorded, so our phone lines are not open. Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. Acts 4, 32.

I am Rob West. That passage clearly shows the radical generosity of the first century church. How does that compare with church giving today?

We'll explore that first, and we have some great calls lined up, but we won't be taking your live calls today because we're prerecorded. This is MoneyWise Live from Biblical Wisdom for your financial decisions. Okay, so the church advancement team at Generis and the Barna group did a survey to find out the status of giving today. It's called Revisiting the Tithe and Offering, and it revealed a lot about how Christians are supporting the local church. Giving, of course, doesn't involve just money. As the saying goes, Christians should be generous with their time, talent, and treasure. But not surprisingly, the vast majority of pastors, 94%, reported that they view member giving primarily through the lens of tithes and offerings, far exceeding other forms of generosity.

I'll inject a personal note here. I look forward to the day when that's not the case, when tithes and offerings are such that finances don't have to weigh so heavily on the minds of pastors. They have enough on their plate with feeding the flock that they shouldn't have to worry about money. Okay, obviously tithes and offerings are vital to the local church, so it's also not surprising that 98% of pastors said their church is primarily funded through individual donations.

That much, I think, is good. The local church should be funded through member giving, rather than investment earnings or an endowment of some type. A church should have an emergency fund, something like a year's worth of operating expenses.

But assets beyond that should be used for ministry or missions, in my opinion. Now, there's some good news about Christian generosity as compared to Americans as a whole. Studies show that 60% of U.S. adults give to a charitable organization during the course of a year. Nominal Christians, those who don't attend church at least monthly or say their faith is important to them, give at about the same rate as the general population. But a full 90% of practicing Christians who do attend church at least monthly and say their faith is important to them give to charity on an annual basis, and that charity includes giving to their local church.

What does all this mean? Well, it actually makes perfect sense. In general, Christians are more generous than the population as a whole, as they should be. And believers who feel strongly about their faith and attending church regularly are more generous than those who don't.

Exactly what you'd expect. And the average amounts of giving track perfectly with those three groups. U.S. adults give an average of $916 a year to charities. Nominal Christians give slightly more, $1,165 a year. And practicing Christians give $3,000 a year, or more than triple that of the average American adult, two-thirds of which goes to their local church. Now, we occasionally get calls from listeners who want to know if it's okay to give their tithes and offerings to something other than their local church. We believe your tithes should go to your local church. It's wonderful to give sacrificially to other ministries, but your first fruits should go where you're fed.

So it's encouraging to see that the survey revealed most Christians agree. A full 75% think it's more generous to give to their local congregation. That clearly shows a commitment to the local church with regard to giving.

The next finding isn't quite so encouraging. While 55% of believers agree that all church members should financially support their local church, 51% also said that there may also be circumstances when it's okay not to. An example of that would be volunteering at the local church. Surprisingly, about 60% of Christians in general, meaning nominal and practicing combined, said that members who are committed to volunteering have less of a financial obligation to support the church. And even more surprising, that percentage held true for practicing Christians, about 60% of those who attend regularly and hold strongly to their faith also believe that volunteering can be a substitute for financial giving. In my opinion, that's not right.

Don't get me wrong. Volunteering is important to the church, and every member should look for ways to be of service. But if every member gives time and not a tithe, you soon wouldn't have a church. Volunteering should only be viewed as a substitute for financial giving when you're unable to be a percentage giver to your church. And even then you should always try to give something as a form of worship. Well, there you have it. Some good news about church giving today and some not so good.

It's all something to pray about as the collection plate comes around this Sunday. All right, we're going to pause for a break when we come back. Much more on the program, so don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. Delighted to have you along with us today on MoneyWise Live. I'm Rob West, your host. This is where we apply God's truth to your financial decisions.

Here's what we recognize on this program. God owns it all, and money is a tool to accomplish God's purposes because you're a steward, and so am I. We're money managers for the King of Kings. Here's the other reality is that money issues are hard issues. You know, my experience is that our financial journey is one of the key ways God shapes our spiritual journey. And really money issues, the way we handle money, it's a training ground of the heart. It's one of the most tangible, visible expressions of what we value and where we've placed our trust. The question is, is there a misalignment between what's really important to us and what money says is important to us?

And if it is, perhaps we need to change the way we're allocating God's resources. Well, we can all get better at that, and so let's do that together. Our phone lines are not open at the moment because we're away from the studio, but we have some great questions that we lined up in advance. In addition to those calls we've already lined up, we'll tackle a couple of emails. Sue had a tough time a couple of years ago, had some charge-offs and medical bill collections.

She's now current on everything but wants to know, how do I improve my credit score? I'll weigh in on that. And then Austin wants to know with the raise he got recently, should he boost his retirement contributions or accelerate the payoff of his mortgage? I'll weigh in on that as well. A little later in the broadcast, I'll also tackle the question, how and when should we help the needy? When you come across those who are in a desperate situation from poverty, what is the right time to provide?

How should we think about that as believers? I'll weigh in on that topic as well. All right, let's dive in today. Heading to the phone starting in Mississippi. Al, you'll be our first caller today.

Go ahead, sir. I'm retired and I have two buckets of retirement. I have a TSP with approximately $300,000, and I was considering a rollover annuity. I talked with a USAA rep, and he said if I wanted to get a stream of $1,000 for me and $1,000 for my wife in case something happened with me or something happened to her, I would need $191,686 to achieve that. And I was just, I don't mean to throw these numbers at you, but I was just wondering, would that be a wise move? Because I can't leave it where it is right now in the TSP fund.

And it's virtually no administrative calls to keep it there. They've loosened their rules up recently where you can go online and pull money pretty much two times a month, and they're a lot more lax on pulling your money out. But I didn't know if this annuity was a good idea because USAA is a very reputable company. I've got my savings and mortgage loan vehicle mortgage with them, and I've been with them about 20, 25 years.

So what would you advise? Yeah, so let me just make sure I understand. So Al, basically what they're saying is if you roll $190,000 of the $300,000 into this annuity product, that they could give you off of that $190,000 an income stream for life that goes for you, but beyond your life with survivor's benefits to your wife as well, a consistent $1,000 a month for the rest of both of your lives, correct? Correct. And yeah, if I wanted to increase that to $1,200, approximately $290,000, I would have to pull out.

And I've got $300,000 in there, so it pretty much would wipe it out. Well, now that part's throwing me off a little bit. So to get an extra $200, you've got to go from $190,000 to $290,000? I think that's what he said.

Yeah, that part doesn't seem right. But let's just talk about the bigger question here. And, you know, I can understand why you might want to do this in the sense that you're looking for that guaranteed income stream. And, you know, annuities, just to be frank, are not my favorite solution.

I mean, they tend to be expensive. There's commissions baked into these. You know, obviously, you've got the underwriting fees that go to the actuarial risk on the benefits. And then you've got the, you know, fund management, which may or may not give you the performance you're looking for. But in this case, you're looking for an income stream. So that's less of an issue.

Then you have the penalties. So if you needed to access the money for any reason, you would have surrender charges and other penalties that you would have to address. The benefit, though, is you could take a portion of this retirement and basically guarantee an income stream for life for you and your wife. That gives you the peace of mind to know that regardless of what the market is doing, we can count on this extra $1,000 a month. And, you know, if that solves for a gap in the income that you need to meet your obligations on a monthly basis, you may decide that's entirely worth doing if, in fact, it's, you know, $190,000 translates into $1,000 a month. And that does apply to both you and your wife. So it doesn't go away if you pass away.

It requires both of you to die. You know, that's not a bad offer. What I would typically look at is to say, OK, what if we put that same $190,000 to work? And we would typically look in retirement at, you know, with maybe a 60-40 portfolio, bonds to stocks, you know, a 4% withdrawal rate where you'd never decrease the principal over time. It may be down in any given month or quarter, but over time you'd try to maintain the principal balance of $190,000 and pull out 4% a year. That'd be $633 a month, $7,600 a year on $190,000. Now, the benefit of that is even though you are taking, you're assuming the risk yourself because if the market goes against you, you could lose value even though over the long haul it should, you know, work out well with a properly managed portfolio. But you're obviously, we're talking $633 a month versus $1,000. Now, the upside is you've still got access to your money. So if you, you know, had a major medical event, you had something out of left field, you needed to access part of that $190,000, you can do that without a lot of penalties. So I think a couple of things here.

You just need to determine, number one, how much added peace of mind do you get by transferring the risk away from yourself to the insurance company. That's issue number one. Issue number two is, are you correct in that you're going to get $1,000 for not only your life, but your wife's life as well? And is it $194,000? I double check that it sounds a little high. It's a good number, but it sounds a little high.

And then number three, how much value do you put on being able to get to the principal without surrender charges and penalties versus not, which would be the case with the annuity? I think those are really the three issues that you've got to consider. Does that make sense?

Yeah, yeah, that does. And I've got to in steady income streams, I'm federal retiring and Air Guard retiree. So I've got, you know, stated plus social security. So, you know, it's just kind of like six or one half dozen the other, which way I go, but I appreciate your insights on that.

Well, you're welcome. And I think just given that last piece of information there, Al, if in fact, the retirement you have plus social security is enough to cover your bills for the rest of your life, then I kind of like the idea of not putting it into an insurance product. Because, you know, what I'd rather see you do is take that invest it conservatively, keep access to the money, and then be able to draw an income stream if you need it.

But here's the great thing. You know, if you manage it properly, you can pull an income stream off of it, and it's still be there at after both of you die, and you could give it to, you know, support God's work, you could leave it as an inheritance as opposed to the annuity contract where, you know, in all likelihood, that just goes away. So if your bills are covered, I kind of like the idea of you connecting with a certified kingdom advisor and having this money managed. Thanks for your call, Al. We'll be right back on MoneyWise Live as we apply God's truth to your financial situation.

Whether it's your lifestyle, your giving, your debt, or your saving, we'll apply God's principles. Stay with us. We'll be right back. You are listening to MoneyWise Live with Rob West. Today's broadcast is pre-recorded, and that means we're not taking any calls. But we've got some calls lined up and great information coming your way that we think you'll find helpful.

So stay tuned and enjoy the rest of the program. You know, thousands of our listeners, young and old, are having great success in managing their finances with the MoneyWise app. And I can't think of a better tool to help you manage your budget, pay your bills, plus have biblical financial advice at your fingertips. And it's available on desktop or mobile. So just head to our website, MoneyWise.org, click the app tab for details. By the way, if you're already using the MoneyWise app and love it, we'd love for you to post a review in the Apple App Store or the Android Play Store. That gives us greater visibility to reach even more people with this biblically based tool.

You can head to your app store and search for MoneyWise biblical finance, or head to MoneyWise.org and click the app tab. Alright, let's head back to the phones. Texas, Chad, thank you for calling. Go right ahead. Can you hear me? Yes, sir, I can. Thank you.

Okay, wonderful. Just thank you for your service. I'm a teacher and I've been a teacher for 10 years in Texas and they sign us up in TRS, Texas Retirement System. I am now going to a university and I have the option to go TRS or continue with TRS or go ORP.

And that looks to be a version of 403b1 or 403b7. And I will take TRS in retirement, it averages the last five years of service and then does an equation and it's kind of like an annuity, what you'll receive in retirement each month. I am taking a $10,000 basically pay cut for this new position, so I know that's going to affect my retirement.

I just don't know what to do. Do you have any experience or advice with either of these systems? You know, I'm familiar with what you're talking about there on both of these plans, obviously the teacher's retirement or the ORP, which is a defined contribution. And, you know, if you withdraw your retirement contributions, you can cancel your membership and future retirement benefits with the TRS. And then if you return to state employment, you'll be considered a new employee. So, you know, I would probably do some further planning on this just to look in detail at both options. I'd be hesitant for you to jump out of the pension plan without really understanding the implications of that, because that tends to be pretty effective.

Now, have they, do you know if it's an option for you to do a rollover to an IRA if you were to go into the new plan? That I don't know. This is happening very quickly.

Of course, this being the first of the year and it feels like I'm just being pushed through as fast as possible. Yeah, yeah, I can understand that. Well, this is one you want to try to understand the full implications of before you do it. Do you have an advisor that you've worked with in the past, Chad? I have had an advisor that we had before, and I think I have a $50 credit in an account that's kind of frozen with the advisor. Okay.

All right. Well, you could connect with an advisor to do a little more digging here. I mean, essentially, the big difference is the teacher's retirement, the TRS is a defined benefit program, which is the pension option, whereas the ORP is a defined contribution, which as you said, is more akin to a 401k, where it's really up to you to contribute it. So the question is, can you freeze the TRS and possibly roll that to an IRA and then moving forward, move into the defined contribution plan where you would just establish through salary deferral contributions that you would make into the program moving forward?

That seems like that might be the best of both worlds, because then you'd kind of capture what's been going into the defined benefit program that you've had with your prior experience as a teacher, and then moving forward, you would just continue to build your assets through the defined contribution as you make your own contributions moving forward. And that would be obviously additional assets that you can add to what you pull out of the pension retirement. So I would look at that. But obviously, there's fine print here that you just need to make sure you understand the implications of everything. So I think I would first look at the option of rolling it over and just see if that's available to you. And if so, I think, you know, that'd be the direction that I would go.

But if you want to get a little bit more information and do some additional analysis on this, connecting with a certified kingdom advisor there in Texas, perhaps just paying for a couple of hours of someone's time to really analyze both options, both from a tax standpoint, as well as a future benefit standpoint, you know, could make some sense as well. Wonderful. Can you remind me how to reach one of the certified kingdom advisors?

Absolutely. Chad, just head to our website MoneyWise.org. You'll see a button there at the top of the page that says, find a CKA certified kingdom advisor, you can do a zip code search and find one that's close to you, perhaps interview a couple, make sure it's a good fit, and then proceed from there.

MoneyWise.org. All right. Very good. Thank you, sir. All right, Chad. God bless you, bud.

Let's stay in Texas. Luna, thank you for calling. Go right ahead. Hi. Okay.

My name is Luna. So actually, I was trying to improve my credit. But somehow there is a lot of inquiries. And we just bought a car like a month ago. And so I just want to, I just need some ideas or because how to use our credit cards, you know, because the credit cards are always a big issue.

So I need to know how to use it and how to make a payment like in a good way, you know what I mean? I sure do. Yeah. Let's talk about that. I'm going to get you to hold because we've got to take a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about, unfortunately, buying a car shortly before you get a mortgage is going to create a little bit of difficulty because of that new credit. But we'll also tackle this question about credit cards.

And does the way you pay affect your credit score? Folks, we're going to pause for a quick break again. We're not here today taking some time off. So don't call in.

But more questions just around the corner. This is MoneyWise Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. I'm Rob West and we'll be right back.

Don't go anywhere. Thanks for joining us today on MoneyWise Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. Hey, our team is away from the studios today, so don't call in.

But we lined up some great questions. We'll get right back to the phones here in just a moment. Hey, would you like to find a financial advisor, an investment advisor, tax and accounting professional that shares your values and has met high standards when it comes to character and integrity, but also experience? You can do so when you search for a certified kingdom advisor. You can find one in your area on our website, MoneyWise.org.

Just click find a CKA. All right, let's head back to the phones. Just before the break, Luna was sharing with us from Texas that she's trying to improve her credit. She's ready to buy a home, but just bought a car a month ago. Nothing bad on the credit, but wants to work on it and try to get that credit score up.

Unfortunately, Luna, you know, purchasing a car or taking out a new loan for a car is going to make it a little more challenging to buy that mortgage because when we seek new credit, although if you're an on-time payer and because it's added to your credit mix, the long-term benefit of having that loan for your credit score is good, but in the near term, adding new debt actually works against you and can cause, in most cases, a slight decline in the credit score in the few months following the car loan, but that should come back up in just a matter of months as that new loan comes online. With regard to your credit, do you all carry a balance month-to-month on your credit cards, Luna, or is this money you're charging and then paying off every month? Just make sure the credit cards, because sometimes we are behind the payments, not like behind like behind means, like sometimes we cannot pay off, you know, the whole amount.

We just pay the minimum or just a little bit above the minimum. I just want to know, is it okay or we just need to pay off every month on time, like a full payment of our credit card? Yeah, well, when it comes to credit cards, I mean, I really want you to use them only for budgeted items and to the very best of your ability, try to pay them off in full every month. The extent to which we're using that to fund your lifestyle spending beyond your income is a recipe for disaster because just with the high interest rates, which by the way are increasing as the Fed funds rate increases with interest rates going up, these variable credit card interest rates are going up as well. And so this is expensive money and it's going to enable you to spend beyond your means, which we really don't want to do.

We want to rein in your spending so that you're living within your means and that you even have something left over, which is going to be key to funding your goals and longer term objectives. So I would say regardless of your credit score, it's really critical that you limit credit card spending to budgeted items so that you can pay them off in full. Now as it relates to your credit score, the primary factor there with regard to credit scores is something called credit utilization. So you could think in terms of all of the credit that's available to you, your credit limit, and then you'd look at your balance. And if your balance on any one card or in the aggregate across all the cards is above 30% of your total limit, the amount that's available to you, that's where it's really going to begin to hurt you with regard to your credit score. So that's something you just want to be aware of.

If it's not anywhere close to 30% and you're not charging a whole lot and even when you didn't pay it in full, you're still well under that 30% threshold, then it's not impacting you negatively from a credit score standpoint, even though I would submit you're still paying a lot of interest that's unnecessary. Does that make sense? That does make sense, sir. And one more question, like a few years ago, I joined a one credit repair company. I have a lot of collections and stuff like that, and I give them a lot of money to them, you know, but still on my credit, I paid off everything actually, but my still on credit is showing a lot of collections, but it's already paid off everything. So I just want to know, do I need to join something, join any company or something to raise everything from my credit? Yeah, I wish you would have called me before you did that, because I would have said don't ever pay any money to somebody who does quote unquote, credit repair. They can't do anything that you can't do yourself free.

So here's the reality of that, Luna. You know, you and I would recommend you do this need to be pulling your credit report at least every six months, if not every three months, four times a year, and reviewing all three bureaus files to determine is there any incorrect or inaccurate information. And if there is, then the Fair Credit Reporting Act says that you can dispute that and the bureaus make it fairly easy to do this, you can dispute that information, and they then have 30 days to either correct it or delete it. Or if it is in fact accurate, and they can document that, then they'll leave it right where it is.

But you can do that yourself for free. The credit repair companies can't do anything that you can't do yourself. If in fact, those collections are accurate, and they're showing that they were in collection, even though they're, they should be showing a zero balance, if you paid them off, then those are going to be on there for seven years, for in most cases, and there's really nothing you can do about that.

But you can be assured that every year that passes, as those get older, even before they fall off, they become less of a negative factor in terms of how your it affects your credit score. So you just want to make sure that everything's accurate. Is the collection real? Was it actually your account? And is it showing the current balance, hopefully zero if you've paid them off. And if it is, there's really nothing you can do or anybody else can do to have those removed, because that's accurate information.

And it's entitled to stay there and for seven years. Okay, I got you. Thank you very much for your all information. Thank you. Happy to do it, Luna. Thank you for your call today. God bless you. Emily in Virginia, thanks for your call today.

Go right ahead. Thanks for taking my call. I was calling to find out if in relation to the reverse mortgage options or alternatives, when you have had an inheritance that now you share with your brother and sister of a home. If one of the siblings wants to purchase the home from the others, is there a particular type of mortgage or one way to make that easier since it's between family members? Yeah, a couple ways to do that, Emily, and I would get a real estate attorney involved to make sure that you, you know, do this the proper way. But essentially, one or more siblings can buy out the others using a quit claim deed. So the buyout would need to reflect the fair market value, or you could trigger, you know, an event that would need to at least be reported to the IRS.

So that could be done. If the sibling can't qualify for a mortgage, you know, the to buy the others out, you could do an intra family loan, essentially owner financing, where the buyers making payments to the other siblings. You know, apart from that, you could obviously rent out the home and split the profits, or sell the home and split the profits. But if you're looking to, you know, if one sibling is, you know, in the all siblings inherited this, but one wants to buy it, they really just have to determine, you know, what is the fair market value? And, you know, they can actually purchase it from the others using that quit claim deed, and go out and qualify for a mortgage on their own if they're able to do that.

But give me your thoughts on that. And is there any additional information that might be helpful for me? Well, like if I'm in our situation, there's three of us. And so with with the purchase price after the real estate assessment and everything, with that can be the purchase price be two thirds of what the house would work? Or would the person have to actually pay the full amount that the house works at that time? Yeah, no, they could buy the other two out just based on the value of their portion. Because you all already own this.

And so you'd essentially surrender your rights to your portion for the cost of that. I hope that helps. We appreciate your call. We'll be right back. This is our final segment of a broadcast we previously recorded. Thanks so much for being with us today. And we hope you'll stick around and enjoy the rest of today's program.

Emily and I finished up during the break there. And essentially, with that inherited house that was inherited by three siblings, if one sibling wants to buy the other two out, it can be fairly simple. If you can agree on a purchase price based on establishing a market value, basically the one that wants to ultimately buy out the home can pay for the share of the other two and they just essentially signed the deed over using a quitclaim deed. I would always use a real estate attorney to make sure everything is documented properly and handled the way that it should be.

And obviously, establishing that market value is going to be the primary issue there that everybody agrees on so that we can establish what their portions are worth. But we're grateful for Emily's call today. Let's head to, let's see, Louisiana. Ronnie, thanks for calling.

Go right ahead. Yeah, Rob, I was calling for some advice and what you think I should do. I own my own agency with Allstate Insurance and I've been with them. It'll be 25 years in January. And I'm 56 years old. I was planning on working until about 61, 62. But I haven't saved as much as I should have saved towards my retirement because my retirement was pretty much going to be banked off me selling my agency because we own the economic interest in our agency. But Allstate is making massive changes where they're slashing out commissions drastically and cutting out pay every year by probably in excess of 50 to 60,000 a year. And what is the resale value of the agency? So when I come to sell the agency, first of all, I might not even be able to sell it because I think they're trying to get rid of the agency force completely and go to like a Geico model, which I think they'll go bankrupt if they do that.

But that's a whole nother story. So what I'm trying to decide is I'm trying to get with a kingdom advisor to see how much money I would have to start saving right now in a retirement plan to offset that loss. So would you know what I might I mean, I can't offset the whole thing, but I could offset. In other words, if it's if I could if I could sell it for a million at 61, but now are 62. But now I can only get a half a million, then I want to try to put enough aside, but invest, you know, biblically and kingdom minded because I am a born again believer.

Yes, I want to try to I want to try to do that. So another thing, I bought another agency in 17 and finance that one for 10 years and but I was able to merge it into mine. But I do have five five more years to pay on that one. But my interest rate is phenomenal. I'm at five point five on a commercial loan.

I have five I have five years left. Everything else I own, I'm debt free. My house is paid for. It's worth about six hundred thousand. My office is paid for and I have some money saved, but not near what I should have saved for retirement. I didn't think Allstate would jerk the rug out from under me.

Sure. I thought about refinancing that agency. That would free up about five thousand a month. But I'd have to go for 10 years and I was going to take that five a month and invest that. I don't know if it's better to do that or pay the loan off in five more.

And I'm just trying to get some sound advice off my situation. Well, that's that's helpful, Ronnie, and appreciate so much that background. You've obviously got a lot of moving parts there. I hope you can sort out not only the valuation of that practice business that you've built there, but the agency, but also sort through, you know, just the you know, how that gets transitioned to the next owner.

And I realize a lot of these conversations you're having are perhaps disconcerting. So I think you're right. You need to do some retirement planning once you have greater clarity on how, you know, you can sell this agency at the right time and what you would get out of it when you do and then match that with the needs that you have in retirement to maintain your lifestyle. So at least you know what your target is, whether that comes from hopefully, you know, fully realizing the value of the agency if you're able to get there or if not, to your point, by getting at least whatever you can out of it and then just being really diligent between now and retirement to save and put money aside and invest it in an appropriate way so that you can build wealth and the combination of the two, the liquidity event from the agency plus what you can put away between now and then, you know, gives you what you need to maintain your lifestyle, you know, plus social security. As to refinancing it, it's really going to come down to just ultimately what that new interest rate would be on the commercial loan because I agree you have a pretty attractive rate right now and how that affects your cash flow and just doing the cost benefit analysis to determine is it better to go ahead and, you know, reduce the debt service today so you can invest it or just stick with that loan and get it paid off.

So I think you're right. You need a financial planner that can really just help sort all of this out with you. So what I would do, Ronnie, is head to our website MoneyWise.org, click find a CKA. You'll do a zip code search to find certified kingdom advisors near you.

I'd interview two or three and then find the one that's the best fit and it sounds like what you need most of all right now, even though you may need some asset management down the road, what you really need right now is some planning to determine what is your ultimate savings goal in terms of how much do you need to target and then how are you going to get there both in terms of the sale of the agency, the money you can put away between now and then, and what to do with this business note that you have. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. And one of the questions before I let you go, I mean, I know we in the last days, you know, the Bible talks about the market to be, she won't be able to buy, sell or trade without it and all that stuff and everything happening on the political scene is moving so quick, but I am hearing, I don't know if there's room, I don't know if you heard anything, but I already heard that Joe Biden has signed an executive order by the end of the year to put everybody with this new digital currency where the entire, the government will have full control of your money and that kind of thing and it could very well affect, you know, if you have a hundred thousand in the bank, it could be worth 50 or 25,000 overnight.

I know you, you know, you do this way more than I do. Are you hearing anything as far as that or is that just Roma or has that come across your desk? There, there's not anything like that that's been enacted, Ronnie. I wouldn't be concerned about that. There was a study commissioned by the Federal Reserve to look at digital currencies. They're exploring it just like every other central bank trying to figure out their position on it, whether or not they want to create a central bank backed version of the digital currency to counter what's happening with the cryptos. And so they're looking at it. They're obviously very concerned about what's happening in the crypto space. We've seen some news out that about their posture on that that's resulted in a continued downward trend on these cryptocurrency valuations. But there's been nothing that's been enacted to, you know, put into motion anything related to digital currencies in this country. So that conversation, although there's talk about it, there's analysis being done, there's nothing that's been put in place.

So I wouldn't be concerned about that anytime soon. Ronnie, we appreciate your call today. Again, to find a CK, just head to MoneyWise.org and all the best to you, sir, as you think through this. We appreciate you weighing in on the program today. Hey, folks, before we round out the program today, just in these final remaining moments we have, let's tackle a question that we get often here from good hearted people that want to be helpful to those in need. And clearly, if we look at the Council of Scripture, you know, we need to be looking for people on our path that are in a needy situation and responding. You know, poverty and need are facts of life in a fallen world. Jesus tells his disciples in Matthew 26, 11, the poor will always be with you. Some poverty, of course, is self-inflicted. According to Proverbs, the sins of laziness, stinginess, the love of pleasure, greed, gluttony and drunkenness can all lead to economic poverty. Sometimes, though, people can become poor through no fault of their own.

But here's the reality. Generosity toward those in need, no matter how they got that way, should be a hallmark of Christian living. Psalm 112 says the righteous man has scattered abroad, has gifts to the poor. Obviously, God expects us to be generous givers, but we're also to be good stewards of the resources he's entrusted to us. So that then begs the question, how and when do we help the needy?

Well, here's some thoughts on that as we round out the program today. First, the Lord is concerned about the poor without question, so we should always be ready to help those truly in need. Psalm 82, 3 commands us to defend the cause of the weak and fatherless, maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. On the flip side, Proverbs 21, 13 warns us if a man shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, he too will cry out and not be answered. While we must defend the rights of the poor, the Bible also tells us to include the poor in our financial giving. Proverbs 28, 27 says he who gives to the poor will lack nothing. Isaiah 58, 10 also contains a promise for those who look after the needy.

If you spend yourselves on behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness and your night will become like the noon day. Giving sacrificially to those in need pleases the Lord, so we know we should give help to the least of these in our communities. But what about panhandling? Well, it's common, especially in cities, big ones, to see people begging on the street. If God prompts you to give in that situation, listen to his voice.

However, a wise steward considers the realities. Often panhandlers are not what they seem. If someone approaches you asking for a handout, be prepared to direct them to a local homeless shelter or church food pantry. Don't just always hand cash or gift cards. But here's the reality. We are to give generously, sacrificially, willingly and cheerfully to meet the needs of the less fortunate.

Meet the physical needs and there will be opportunity to fill the spiritual needs as well. After all, we've been given an inheritance of faith that is worth sharing. I hope that was an encouragement to you today. Hey folks, thanks for tuning in. MoneyWiseLive is a partnership between Moody Radio and MoneyWise Media. I want to say thank you to Jim, Amy, Dan and Gabby. Thank you for being here as well. Hope you'll come back and join us next time for another edition of MoneyWise Live. We'll see you then.