Renewing Your Joy in Generosity

Giving is supposed to be a source of great joy for God's people, but sometimes we act like it's just another pain in our wallet.

Hi, I'm Rob West. Christians are supposed to be generous, but maybe you're having trouble getting excited about the idea. Today, we'll point you back to the radical joy of godly generosity, and then we'll take your calls at 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. This is Faith and Finance Live, biblical wisdom for your financial journey. Okay, it's time for some true confessions about your giving. Has your electronic donation at church every Sunday become a bit automatic? Or perhaps you're struggling financially right now, so you've reduced your giving and you're feeling a bit guilty. Then again, perhaps decisions about how much and where to give are causing tension in your marriage, so you end up dreading those conversations. There are so many ways our generosity can become stale and unjoyful.

If that's the case for you, it's time for a renewed perspective, and we're going to help you with that today. Let's begin by remembering that Christian generosity is different from the world's idea of generosity. Giving that honors God is not about showing off or improving our self-esteem or even getting buildings named after us. Ultimately, Christian generosity is different because we serve a different master. As it says in Ephesians 5-1, Be imitators of God as beloved children, and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

Because of love, Jesus gave his life on the cross for us, and we imitate him when we are radically, sacrificially, and joyfully generous. Another thing to remember about giving is that sometimes the action needs to precede the feeling. In other words, even if you don't feel joyful about giving sometimes, keep doing it anyway, because generosity pleases the Lord.

Ask Jesus to guide you as you give in faith, and the joy will come. Here's another way to renew your perspective on generosity. Cultivate a biblical attitude about your giving. God's Word says our giving should be secret, open-handed, cheerful, loving, and sacrificial.

Let's look at those attitudes more closely. First, giving should be secret, not showy. That way the glory goes to the Lord, not to the giver.

Jesus admonishes his followers in Matthew 6 to be careful not to do your acts of righteousness before men, not to be seen by them. But when you give to the needy, do not let your right hand know what your left hand is doing, so that your giving may be done in secret. Second, giving should be open-handed, not stingy. Second Corinthians 9, 6, and 7 says whoever sows generously will also reap generously.

Remember, what we have is not our own. It all belongs to God, whether it's time, talent, or treasure. So we can always afford to be generous because God is our provider. Third, giving should be cheerful, not reluctant. The passage in Second Corinthians goes on to say each man should give as he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. Having a cheerful attitude about giving might be a challenge.

You might have to ask God to change your heart in this area. Believe me, he will do that because a cheerful attitude towards giving is his desire for you. Fourth, giving should come from love, not obligation. Giving that glorifies God springs from love for God and our neighbor.

That love isn't something you can produce. It's a work of the Holy Spirit in you. And finally, giving should be sacrificial, not necessarily convenient. Sacrificial giving makes us more like Christ.

Second Corinthians chapter 8 verse 9 says For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich. Sacrificial giving is a testimony that we trust God to meet our needs while we meet the needs of others. So to recap here, giving that honors God and fills us with joy from the Holy Spirit will be secret, open handed, cheerful, loving, and sacrificial. And believe me, there are spiritual benefits to cultivating these attitudes and actions.

Most importantly, God gets the glory. John 3 21 says, Whoever lives by the truth comes into the light so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God. You see, as Christ followers, we long to be more and more like our Lord Jesus as we walk with him each day.

But sometimes you may find yourself giving with a reluctant spirit or because you feel guilty or out of a desire to earn the admiration of others. If that's the case for you today, ask the Lord to change your heart. Pray for the Holy Spirit to guide you, knowing that God will provide for your needs and the needs of others through you. All right, we're ready to answer your financial questions today. So give us a call, 800-525-7000.

I'm Rob Lastin. We'll be right back on Faith and Finance Live. Stay tuned. It's time to take your calls and questions today. We'd love to hear from you with whatever you're thinking about financially. We've got a few lines open, although the calls are coming in quickly. So now's the time to get in the queue. We'd love to tackle your financial question today at 800-525-7000. That's 800-525-7000. Let's begin today in Florida. Let's see, Francisco, thank you for calling. Go ahead. Thank you, Rob.

Appreciate it. Rob, same as there is an insurance for the regular accounts on a bank like FDIC, on a brokerage account like Confidelity, I see that it says that it's insured by the SITC up to $500,000. A friend of mine, I was advising him to put the money in there because of the good interest, and he searched and he said, well, the money is available or is not automatically insured. It's eligible to be insured if something goes wrong with the brokerage account. So I was a little bit worried, wondering if you know anything about this.

Yes. Well, it should be automatically protected through the SIPC. You can ask the custodian of the account, but keep in mind this is against the loss of cash and securities. So we're talking stocks and bonds held by you at a SIPC member brokerage firm. And as long as they're a member, SIPC member, then you're automatically covered.

You don't have to apply for it or do anything to get it. Now, the key is to understand what this covers and what it doesn't, Francisco. And you may be clear on this, but just to be sure, this is against the loss of assets or stocks due to the failure of the institution. So if the broker fails financially, if your assets were missing or they were stolen due to unauthorized trading or theft from the account, that's where SIPC would step in up to $500,000 in total coverage per customer or per account if the accounts are separate capacities. And then up to $250,000 can be applied to cash that's not yet invested in securities. But this does not cover losses based on the investment losses. So if the investments inside the account lose value, SIPC does not cover that. This is really against the failure of the institution or if there's any kind of theft or fraud that occurs. But the question you would want to ask is, is this a member firm of the SIPC?

And if they are, then you automatically have that coverage. Perfect. Perfect. Well, we have the money just on the brokerage. We don't want to trade.

We don't want it. It's like it's in cash. So we were not exposed on any type of trading. So that was worrying me.

But I think with what you just said, we should be fine there. Meanwhile, it's below $500,000, correct? Well, no, if it's not in securities, the limit is $250,000 of that protection from SIPC that can be applied to cash within the account. You can get up to $500,000 if you have it in securities.

But if it's only cash, you would be limited to $250,000 in coverage. Now, actually, well, you clarify a lot. Thank you so much, Rob. I really appreciate it. Excellent. You're welcome. Hey, the only other thing I would mention to you, Francisco, is if you're not planning on investing this and you are going to leave it in cash instruments, then I would look to make sure you're getting a good yield on this because, you know, you should be getting at least 4% plus.

The other thing that I would ask is, with this significant amount of money, as long as you've got the right time horizon, 10 years plus, why not try to put this money to work for you, taking a modest amount of risk that's appropriate for your age and risk tolerance, but trying to grow this beyond what you could get with cash offerings? What are your thoughts there? No, yeah, perfectly, perfectly understand, and I follow that. No, this is something more on the short term, maybe a year, year and a half, while something shows up. So, no, this is not long term. Very good.

And what are you getting in the way of interest? Yeah, I think it's like 4.4 at this moment or a little bit over that. Yeah, it's very good at this moment.

That's why we move their cash, yeah. Okay. Yeah, very good. All right, Francisco, thanks for your call today.

I hope that helps you. We appreciate you being on the program. Let's head to Idaho, Bonners Ferry. Hi, Debbie, go ahead. Hi, Rob. I'm so thankful to be talking with you. I listen to you almost every day. Well, I'm delighted to hear that. I'm glad you're on the program.

Thanks. I hope this isn't going to be too complicated. I live in Idaho. My daughter lives in Tennessee.

And due to her young, like, eight-and-a-half-month-old daughter, and my age, I decided I want to start wintering in Tennessee. And we're looking at their renting. We're looking at buying a place together. I've got the down payment. And then they would just pay, you know, a monthly amount toward the purchase price. I would pay, you know, they were going through a credit union. We want to go through credit union because it's generally a little lower rates.

And I can't join until I live there. So they're going ahead with the membership and the starting the loan process. I just wondered if it's wise for the three of us to go into this together and what you suggest as far as safeguards and whatever.

Yeah. I mean, I don't have a problem necessarily with you all buying it together as long as there's really good communication and a lot of clarity that's documented on what your ultimate intentions are with respect to several things. Number one, who is going to actually be the owner of the house? Are you going to split the ownership so you'd actually be both listed on the deed?

Or is one person going to be the owner and the other is just helping to secure the property and enjoying the rights of living in the property? Secondly would be the mortgage whose name is the mortgage in and who's in that's going to determine who's ultimately responsible for paying the mortgage monthly and and paying it based on the terms of the mortgage, but also what income is required from what parties for you all to be able to qualify for the rate and terms that you're looking for. And of course, the loan amount.

And can they do that on their own with their own credit score and income or are they going to need you? And so those are really the big questions that I would have. And then is there any kind of payback expected for this down payment that you're putting in versus who's going to be carrying the mortgage? So let's start with the ownership.

What's your intention there? Well, yeah, that one is kind of iffy right now because I'm going to be the one putting the money into it now. But see the reason that I the mortgage can't be in only my name because I'm not there yet. They're going to have to we have to all three beyond the mortgage has to be through all three of us because they're the ones that are resident there. I will be resident there six months every year, but I'm not there yet.

Right. Well, I mean, you wouldn't have to use that credit union. I mean, you could go to bankrate.com and or go to a national lender like Movement Mortgage or, you know, I mean, you could get a loan that doesn't require you to be a resident.

And I'd encourage you to get, you know, at least two to three offers anyway. You know, a lot of times for the biggest transaction we do, which is a home purchase, we often only get one offer. And, you know, it's just, you know, you end up paying more money because you're not comparing lenders with regard to fees as well as interest rate and terms.

So you wouldn't necessarily have to be there. I think the key is, again, who's ultimately going to own it and who's going to be on the mortgage in terms of qualifying for it? And then who's going to be responsible for servicing that mortgage? I understand you're putting in the down payment.

Are you also going to be one of the one making the mortgage payments? Let's do this. I've got to take a quick break, but I want to continue to explore that and maybe help you think through this briefly. So you stay on the line and we'll get to you just after the break. We'll be right back.

Great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West. We've got a few lines open. 800-525-7000 is the number to call with your questions today.

Let's head back to the phone. So just before the break, we were talking to Debbie in Idaho. She would like to help her daughter and son-in-law and their family move into a home that in Tennessee and other state that she would ultimately live in as well. I think periodically as she relocates there throughout the year and is just wanting to sort through some of the questions around how do they do this together? Is it wise?

And maybe what are some of the things they need to be watching out for? And Debbie, I was saying we need to really clarify ultimately who's going to own it, who's actually going to be on the mortgage as well, and therefore who's going to not only help to qualify for that mortgage, meaning who's responsible to pay it and what income is being considered, and then who's going to pay that mortgage every month. And then we've got the down payment as well.

So you mentioned, you know, perhaps you're a little unclear on the ownership. Let's talk about the mortgage for a second. You mentioned you wanted to use a credit union that required you to be a resident. Let's take that off the table for a second because of course there are other options for you to qualify for a mortgage without that. Who is going to be on the mortgage, meaning they're responsible for it, and they're going to be considered as a part of the underwriting process in terms of their credit worthiness and income? Well, taking the credit union off the table, that would probably be in my name because I'm the one that's, like I said, putting the money into it.

And I have the highest credit score too. All right. What's the purchase price roughly? It's about $290,000.

Okay. And you should be able to qualify for that, not only your credit score but the income that you have and the other debt that you have? Yes, I don't have any other debt and I'm going to be able to put down 20% of that. And then the monthly amount, they're going to keep paying what they've been paying for rent and I will make up the rest.

We can easily do it. But part of the problem, Rob, that I didn't mention before is that part of what's going to fund, a little bit of what's going to fund my part of the mortgage is that I'm renting out, I have a multilevel house and I'm just in the process of finishing my basement to move into the basement and I've got renters for the upper two levels. And so the most financial institutions do not consider rent income as part of the, you know, until it's been in place for two years. That's right. So that's kind of why the three of us need to, or them and me kind of need to do this together because I don't have, my income is not quite, almost up to the amount of what we'll be paying monthly, but not quite.

Yeah. So yeah, that does complicate things a little bit. I mean, you potentially could get a mortgage where they would put you and maybe the primary wage earner of your daughter's family, your daughter or your son-in-law on that mortgage as well. Then they'd have recourse to both of you. They of course have the asset itself that they could foreclose on if there was non-payment. And then they could go after each of you for anything that was remaining. So let's say you had enough income between you to qualify for the mortgage. Who do you ultimately want to own this?

And how do you see that breaking down? Whose property is it? Even given the fact that you're at least today putting in the majority of the money in the form of the down payment, some of the mortgage payment, they're contributing to it, which again, this makes it, it's all pretty complicated. How are you thinking about handling ownership?

Yes. Well, my son who's also got a vested interest in this because I'm his mom too. He's helped us figure all this out and how many years it would take for my daughter's family paying, you know, what they're paying now for their, their place they were paying toward that, how many years it would take before they were the full owners based on what I'm putting in.

But I would, until I die, I would probably still live there six months out of the year. So we were thinking maybe I would have one third interest and so they would need to pay back two thirds. Does that make sense? Yeah.

So basically better than I do. Yeah. But the goal is ultimately for them to own the whole property and buy it from you outright, paying you back for everything you've put in both in the down payment and a partial mortgage payment. I was thinking more they would just need to have ownership of two thirds of it and then it would still be ours.

Does that make sense? Yeah. So you'd both be on the deed, you'd own one third, they own two thirds and then the third that's yours, that's your death.

You could decide how you wanted to distribute that maybe between all of the kids. Is that correct? Right. All right.

And at that point, if they wanted to keep the property, they'd have to be willing to buy out any other family members. Correct? Right. And that won't be a problem at all because I only have one other son and he's doing so well financially.

He'll just say, keep it. Okay. All right. Yeah.

So I mean, you can do this. I don't, I don't see any problem with it. I think we just need clarity. I mean, it's a lot of what you just said in the sense that you need to really think it through. I'd put it all in writing as to what the goal the goal is. I would make sure that that one third interest you're getting the property makes sense. It's enough interest based on how much you're going to put in and that they're ultimately not going to pay you back for.

And so he would have to determine what is the real value of that one third interest. And that's then the number that they have to pay you back for. And so there's a schedule on that monthly payment.

How quickly do they have to do that? What's the total amount they will have to pay back? And, you know, it's going to be changing because you have this initial down payment that you're putting in and then you're going to be covering a portion of the monthly payment. And that's all accruing toward an ultimate goal of what they need to pay you for their two thirds interest.

So, you know, it's complicated. I think the key here is communication, documentation and clarity so that there's not any unmet expectations or damaged relationships because they go in one thing, go in thinking one thing, you and your son go in thinking another and, you know, then all of a sudden we're creating a challenge. So I would just make sure you have a well thought out plan. Everybody sits down and talks through it and then you put it in writing.

Everybody signs off on it and then get a real estate attorney to help you just kind of organize it and put it into legal terms. I'd also get two to three offers before you land on that mortgage. I'd make one of them our friends at Movement Mortgage, movement.com forward slash faith.

I also know you wanted to pull a copy of your credit report and do that free and the website to do that is annualcreditreport.com. So Debbie, let us know how this turns out. I hope that was helpful to you though and I appreciate your desire to help your daughter and son-in-law and be able to enjoy time with them when you're in town. God bless you. We'll be right back on Faith and Finance Live. Stay with us.

Great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West. We're taking your calls and questions today, 800-525-7000. Right back to the phones to Indianapolis. Hey, Matt, thanks for calling. Go ahead.

Hey, Rob. Thank you for taking my call today and I just wanted to say thank you for all that your ministry does and we took Crump Financial many years ago and it has helped us along so gratefully and I'm very grateful for the ministry of all that you guys do. Well, thank you. I appreciate that.

So my question is, I think I said to the producer there, I said we were scheduled, but I'm going to change that. I'm going to say we are scheduled to still be paid debt-free in February 2024. We're scheduled to be all completely paid off with everything in 2024.

However, what we have ran into is we've ran into a mold issue with our house. So we've got that that is in mitigation right now. We have a company out getting all that mitigated, getting that dried out. The question that I have is, should I pause the debt payment, which I really don't want to do. I really want to keep attacking the debt. But do we pause it to stack as much cash as we can to help pay what insurance doesn't pay for, so we can pay for that as much as we can out of pocket? Or I've looked into options of taking out another personal loan through the house just because it's looking like it's starting to get pretty expensive. Yeah. Well, I'm sorry to hear that.

And I'm delighted to hear that you're on track to be debt-free. And I understand this is frustrating to have this goal and have it in sight. You can kind of see it around the bend and then all of a sudden you have this thing that comes out of left field that is expensive and complicated.

Mold remediation is no fun. And I understand that your best laid plans are kind of having a wrench thrown in them. But you'll get there. Just stay the course. And I think you're asking the right question here. Matt, do you have a sense that if you were to slow your accelerated first mortgage payoff down and just maybe pay the scheduled monthly mortgage payment, would you be able to cash flow this without taking out a home equity loan? Or is that going to be required altogether?

It's just going to determine how much. So we don't have a first mortgage. That actually paid off before the rest of our debt. Oh, okay.

Wow. The mortgage is done. Now, what I kind of looked into is with this cost of this is to maybe do another mortgage with the bank that we did mortgage the house with that that we finished that mortgage with.

They've got it seems like they've got the best rate with the intention of taking out a lump sum, whatever we don't use goes right back towards it. And then we just chunk that that's one thought, you know, chunk added after you know, we get the total cost of everything done and, and be done with it. Or do you know, I'm just trying to figure out what the best laid plan is to stay on course to pay this, you know, pay the rest of our debt off credit card debt. So how much how much do you have left to pay off? 7400. Okay, that's the total amount and that you're saying will be done early next year.

And what's the interest rate roughly on that? Well, it's it's there are it's zero percent. It's okay. We play How long does that last? That's through I think we've got through through September of next year. Okay, great.

And how much do you think you're going to need based on what you know today for the mold remediation? I don't know. It's still in very early stages. That's the problem. I don't know.

It's still in very early stages. Right now our bathroom. Fortunately, I've got we've got good homeowners insurance they're covering because we've got the loss of the use of the house because it's a one bathroom house and that's what is completely ripped out right now. They're paying for, you know, our stay at a at a hotel right now. But I as far as I'm still, I'm still waiting to hear from the remediation company. Exactly what you know, what coming from insurance and what's what's not going to come from insurance. Yeah, so they're working directly together with my insurance. Okay.

Yep. So I mean, I think, you know, I think the key is for you guys, you know, is probably that interest, you know, because it's at 0%, you got a little bit of time on that, I'd probably, you know, take and divert as much as you can to this project. Now, if you're going to need to borrow either way, normally, I'd recommend you get a home equity loan, just because then you get a fixed rate. The problem is rates are right now the highest they're going to be over the next year, certainly couple of years and beyond. We're expecting them to be probably in the low fives by the end of next year.

Right now we're up near seven. So it's probably best for you to get a home equity line of credit, and then only borrow what you need borrow as little as possible. And then just pay the interest only. But you know, try to pay back as quick as you'd only have to pay the interest only, but you wouldn't do that. You'd pay as much as you can to try to pay it off as quick as you can. And then you're going to have to sync that up with the timing of this, you know, debt jumping back up to, you know, probably 20% on these credit cards, and you'd either have to pay the balance transfer game, or put that into a debt management program, those would probably be your two options. So I think the next step is for you to determine how much is this ultimately going to cost, which you don't know today, just based on how much insurance is going to cover and what's the total scope of the project, determine how much you have as free cash surplus on a monthly basis that you could apply to this to try to cash flow as much as you can. And then you're going to have to sync up the timing of the payoff of the home equity line of credit with the increase in the credit card interest from zero up to whatever it's going to readjust to.

And there's still some variables we've got to solve for, namely, how much is this mold project going to cost in order for you to make that decision. But I think, you know, I would prioritize, you know, getting the credit card debt paid off first, and then let's go after the home equity line of credit, just because we want to certainly have that paid off before September. Right, correct. Yep.

Yep. And if you have that gone by February, then you're good. And that way, you could take 100% of what you're putting toward the credit cards and attack that home equity line of credit at that point. That makes a lot of sense. I think that's exactly what I needed to hear.

Yeah, I think I mean, this is I know these are tough ones, so I'm sorry to hear going through it. I would go to bankrate.com, Matt, before you selected a lender. You could certainly approach your former lender, but I'd get at least a couple of other offers before you check. Not all HELOCs are created equal and they vary widely in the amount of fees you'll pay and the interest rate you'll pay, you know, prime plus, you know, whatever it's going to be on that HELOC.

So I would get multiple offers here. When you're talking about borrowing a smaller amount of money, some lenders are not equipped to do that, you know, for less than $50,000. And so that's why you're probably going to want to get multiple bids to find out who is going to, in fact, be the very best lender for you on this small home equity line of credit. So bankrate.com can help you sort that out.

You can also check with our friends at Movement Mortgage, movement.com forward slash faith. Hey, all the best to you, Matt, as you sort this out, you'll get through it and let us know how it turns out. God bless you. Hey, Linda, Marilyn, Linda, we're coming your way in just a moment. We've got to take a quick break. I know you all been holding patiently and we will get right to you following this break.

Much more to come on Faith and Finance Live as we apply the wisdom from God's word to your financial decisions and choices. It's a privilege to have you with us today. We're going to take a quick break, but back with much more.

Stay with us. Great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live. It's Friday, which means Jerry Boyer stops by to give us his insights on the markets and the economy. Jerry, good afternoon, my friend.

Good afternoon to you. Hey, Jerry, you and I spoke this morning and I asked you a question and I had so much fun hearing your answer that I'm going to ask it again. We were talking about just the purpose of money in our lives, which through a biblical worldview is entirely different than the way the world would approach it.

And I said, Jerry, what's the purpose of money? Share with us. I know you're not going to remember what you said, but I'm sure this definition, this explanation will be just as good. So give it a shot. Well, I remember saying that it's basically a tool that we can use to serve one another and also to thank one another for the service that we've done. But since you asked me that this morning, I've been reflecting on it all afternoon and kind of trying to put.

Yeah, I have. So you ask good questions. Don't sound so surprised.

You got me thinking, is it really that shocking? So I kind of put myself sort of in Nazareth, right, in the first century to kind of ask that question. And Jesus would have grown up in a situation where a lot of his neighbors would have been practicing barter. But because Jesus was like in between worlds, he was partly rural and partly urban. So he was near basically a superhighway, you know, one of the great trading routes of the ancient world. And he was near Sepphoris, which is a financial center. But Nazareth is basically a little olive oil village.

And out from Nazareth, you got more rural. And so they would have been barter people. And so, you know, I raise chickens and I give you eggs and you raise lambs and you give me cheese.

Right. You know, you milk milk from the lambs. I'll keep some of the eggs. You keep them the cheese.

You can make nice feta omelets. But, you know, so you kind of know what's going on there. You understand the exchange. I worked and I made something of value when I traded it for you're doing something of value. But around that time, coming into Jesus's world is the money economy, too. So his parents and grandparents would have grown up without money for the most part. And the newer thing would have been money. So Jesus is there as money is coming on the scene.

So it's probably one of the reasons why he's talking about it so much, not just because it's important, but because it's a new topic and it's a hot topic. Well, the thing about money is that if I sell my eggs for money and you sell your cheese for money, money kind of like becomes a thing. And you can forget that behind that was labor and love and productivity and exchange. And so I think Jesus is seeing that money becomes deceitful at this point because money is just supposed to be a medium of exchange.

Maybe you don't want eggs or I don't want cheese, but my neighbor needs lumber services. And so barter is like really inefficient. And so money just makes all that easier.

But by making it easier, it makes it less transparent. Money just seems like a thing. But money isn't really a thing. It's a tool used to exchange real things.

But it's not real in and of itself. All the great classical economists say it's just a medium of exchange of things of actual value, eggs and cheese and tithes and offerings and houses and all that sort of value. And I think Jesus sees what happens is the money illusion, which is people start to think it's a thing and then they can worship it and they can serve it. And it doesn't work because it's something you use to serve other people.

But when you serve it, it doesn't make any sense. Money doesn't know you've served it. Money doesn't say thank you for worshiping.

Money doesn't get anything out of it. It's really kind of strange the way Jesus talks about it. You can't serve God and mammon. So he makes mammon like a person. And that's what it becomes.

It essentially becomes a demon when you worship it. So money, there's a temptation to money, which is to think that money is important. It's not that money means nothing.

It's just money's importance is only created by the importance of the things that you're doing for it and with it. It just facilitates it. We're talking over the phone.

The main thing is what we're saying to each other, right? The phone is just a conduit. So money can be a conduit for good or conduit for bad, but it's never the aim. Once it becomes the aim, it's completely irrational. It doesn't make any sense. And I think that's what Jesus is talking about when he talks about the deceitfulness of riches.

Yeah, he was so clear in that, Jerry, that's so good. You said something else that relates to all of this. And I think that can be perhaps the springboard into what's going on in our economy right now. And that is that money should be moving, right? It doesn't.

It's a means to an end and it shouldn't stop. It needs to continue to move, right? Right. Because otherwise what's its function? I mean, its job is to facilitate exchange. Its job is, and that exchange might not be an exchange of goods and services.

Almsgiving is an exchange, but it's an exchange based out of pure love and altruism. You don't really get anything out of it. I mean, yes, it does feel good to give.

I understand that. But you know, you really shouldn't give to feel good, right? It's not like just another form of entertainment. And if blackjack were just as pleasurable, you should do that, right?

It's good in and of itself. So there's still an exchange element to that. You're trying to do something.

What's the exchange? Well, you're helping to build the kingdom, right? You're exchanging some of your labor for a kingdom impact. So, you know, that's kind of what money is for. And when it kind of loses that, then what do you do?

If you think money is the point, then you don't want to let any of it out of your sweaty hand, right? Or you don't want to, you want to put it in a hole in the ground. It stops moving. And at the moment that it stops moving, it stops doing anything of good.

Yeah, that's right. So how does that then relate to what we see going on right now as you reflect on the current state of our economy? Well, money has trouble moving in rational and sensible ways when money keeps changing in value and it creates distortions. So one of the ways that we deal with that is we hoard gold as a hedge against inflation, for example. And that might be rational as an investment option. I'm not saying that people shouldn't invest in gold. I actually think gold has been a pretty good investment. And over the past couple of years, I don't give a lot of quite an investment advice, but I have told people, hey, inflation's coming. You might want to up your allocation to go a little bit. No, not all of it. Listen to listen to talk radio all the time.

Not you, but you know, a lot of the talk radio talk radio. I just put it in all in gold and silver. Well, it's not moving. So that's a hedge against something. And the more that the government controls the money supply, the more you're tempted to hoard commodities like gold as a hedge against it. Also, the more the government slows down the economy, which is exactly what our central bank has been trying to do and precisely what the policy environment is coming out of the presidency right now is kind of a slower economy. People think, oh, you're insulting the government.

No, they've been cleared. They want to slow down the economy because they think a growing economy causes inflation because the atheist economics of John Keynes wrongly says that that causes inflation. Well, if you're slowing down the economy, what are you doing? You're stopping the money from moving. I mean, the velocity is the supply of money divided by the GDP.

It's literally how much the money is moving. A slowing economy is by definition the money stops moving. When people hoard cash in their accounts during like a deep depression because they're frightened or just because they're not allowed to spend like during the covid shutdowns, you know, when they padlocked the malls, the money stops moving, the investment money stops moving, the consumption.

And frankly, people get afraid and the almsgiving stops moving. So we're in an environment now where government is sort of trying to control the flow of money. And mostly what it's been doing is slowing money down rather than creating a policy environment in which we feel like let's dig it out of the ground and let's invest it somewhere and get a good return and get growth and then use that for giving and for and for purchases as well. And every week we see the markets responding to whether we think the government is going to try to slow things down or not. This week it was a slowing down kind of thing. You know, we saw that the inflation wasn't as high as expected, etc.

So, you know, basically the story this week is large. I mean, it whips all around a lot, but it's basically been, you know, the government's up and maybe they're going to have maybe they're going to try, maybe the central bank is going to try to slow the economy down a little bit more. So then, you know, markets generally go down and, you know, that's raising interest rates.

The Nasdaq goes down. Gold goes down because they're going to shrink the money supply. So they're micromanaging the economy all the time. And rather than letting us make the decisions, which sound money and a pro-growth environment would get that money moving again. So it's really interesting. People talk as though a growing economy is greedy.

No, no, no, no, no. A shrinking economy is greedy because when the economy shrinks, people hoard. And that's the definition of greed. Greed isn't wealth creation or production. Greed is hoarding. And we are more greedy and more hoarding when the government is destroying the value of our currency and destroying the value of our work.

Interesting, Jerry. Yeah. Very, very well said. And I think summarizes what we're experiencing now very well. So in light of then the most recent data and the prospects of CPI continuing to tick up between now and the end of the year, we may not, in fact, be done with rate hikes. Right. Right. Inflation was higher than expected.

Did I say that right before? I mean, I mentioned it, but I might have used the inflation higher than expected. So basically what happened is the Fed funds futures market.

I know that sounds technical. It's just the market's best guess as to whether they're going to be sucking money out of the system or pumping money into the system. So this week it shifted to they might be they might want to be sucking more money out of the system. They might try to slow the economy down more.

And that's why gold dropped. And that also means that's why more interest rate sensitive markets like the NASDAQ dropped. And that's why bonds dropped, because what does the Fed do? They sell bonds. Well, selling bonds means bond prices go down.

Right. The thing that if the biggest investor in the world is selling something, that means the price of it goes down. And so that pretty much explains the market dynamics.

It's all been hmm. We still didn't beat inflation. So the Fed's probably going to pull more money out of the system, which is going to do what? It's going to slow things down. We're going to hoard. We're going to hold on to our dollars more. We're going to hoard more.

We're going to slow down. We're not going to employ people. We're not going to we're not going to do as much exchanging. We're not going to do as much investing. And that's not the human flourishing that I think is God's plan for the economy. Yeah, that's exactly right. Well, hopefully we can return to that.

We'll certainly manage our own economies that way, Lord willing, and we'll pray for that to be applied to nations as well, including this nation that God has blessed us with. Jerry, thanks for your comments and insights today. We appreciate you. My pleasure.

All right. That's Jerry Boyer, president of Boyer Research. He joins us each Friday. That's going to do it for us. Faith and Finance Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and Faith. Thank you to Tahira, Lynn, Dan and Jim. Couldn't do it without them. Have a great weekend. See you Monday.