The Bible on Work

The following program was prerecorded so our phone lines are not open. Happy Labor Day. It's a great day to pause and reflect on one of God's most important financial principles, working for a living.

Hi, I'm Rob West. Today we take a deep dive into Scripture to learn God's view of work. There's more to it than you might think. Then we have some great questions lined up for you.

But don't call in today because we're prerecorded. This is Faith and Finance Live, biblical wisdom for your financial journey. Okay, the first thing we have to do is put to rest the misconception that work is punishment for the fall. We know that's not true from the very first verse of the Bible, Genesis 1.1. It reads, In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. So we see that God was at work even before man existed. And of course, he labored six days to create the heavens and the earth, everything within them. And finally, he created man in his own image and commanded him to rule over every living thing on earth. Later, we see in Genesis 2.15 that God gave Adam specific instructions about his labor in the garden. It says, Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. And just a few verses later, God creates Eve from Adam's rib so that she could be his helper and labor with him in the garden.

All of this was before the fall. So it's correct to say that work itself is not a punishment. And I think we can assume that working in the garden was quite pleasant.

Of course, that was not to last. Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit from the tree of life and were cast out of the garden. That's where some might get the idea that work became punishment. But I still would not describe work performed after the fall as punishment. I think it's important to note that many translations of the Bible distinguish between work and toil. In Genesis 3.17, God tells Adam, Cursed is the ground because of you.

Through painful toil, you will eat food from it all the days of your life. So after the fall, work becomes less pleasant. But that doesn't mean that work itself is cursed. It may not always be pleasant, but God continues to bless those who work diligently and honor him. An example of this is in Ruth 2.19. It reads, And her mother-in-law said to her, Where do you glean today?

And where have you worked? Blessed be the man who took notice of you. So she told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked and said, The man's name with whom I work today is Boaz.

Of course, Ruth would marry Boaz, bear him a son named Obed, who would become the grandfather of David. I think we can say God blessed her work. And later in Proverbs 22.29, God again says, Diligence in performing our work well will be rewarded. It says, Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will stand before kings.

He will not stand before obscure men. And in Ecclesiastes 2.24, we find there is nothing better for a person than he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also I saw is from the hand of God. Work is also mentioned frequently in the New Testament. The Apostle Paul often incorporates work into the proper behavior of believers. An important theme in his teachings about work is that God is our true master and that we should work diligently with a positive attitude because doing it will point others to Christ. Colossians 3 23 and 24 reads, Whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord, you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. You see, this doesn't mean you can't look for another job if you feel God leading you somewhere else. It just means that wherever you work, you should exemplify Christ, whom you represent. In Ephesians 6 7, Paul says, With good will render service as to the Lord and not to men. And Paul expands on this in 1 Thessalonians 4 11 and 12.

Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands so that you will behave properly toward outsiders and not be in any need. But it seems not everyone in the Thessalonian church was following Paul's direction. Some believers apparently didn't want to work, and he admonishes them in 2 Thessalonians 3 10 through 12, writing, If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. Now, such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.

Okay, one final thought. It's also important to be grateful that you can work to earn a living because that, too, is a gift from God. Deuteronomy 8 18 reads, You shall remember the Lord your God for it is he who gives you the power to get wealth. You see, everything we have is a gift from God, and that includes our work. And before we take our first break, let me remind you, we're out of the studio today. Our team is not here, so don't call in, but much more to come just around the corner on Faith and Finance Live. Stick around. Thanks for joining us today on Faith and Finance Live. Hey, before we head to the phones, let's take a few emails today.

These come in to us all the time at askrob at faithfi.com. This one comes to us from CJ. He writes, We use three credit cards and pay them off every month. One for gas, one for groceries, and one for bills. Since we proved we could handle credit, they raised our spending limits. With so much identity theft, we're thinking of closing the accounts. Is there an amount of time we should allow between closing each card? We don't want to mess up our excellent credit scores. Well, CJ, first of all, I appreciate that you've managed this credit so wisely. It wouldn't really hurt your credit to dramatically to close these accounts.

I'd probably do one every six months. That's going to lessen any kind of minimal impact you would have. I will tell you, though, that if you're managing this wisely and you're getting rewards on these cards, one way to handle the potential for identity theft, if you wanted to continue to use them, would be to freeze your credit at each of the three credit reporting bureaus Equifax, TransUnion and Experian. It's free of charge. You do have to do it individually at each of the three. You can do it online, but that would prevent thieves from opening accounts in your name without the PIN number. And when they can't provide the PIN number, they would be stopped in their tracks. So yes, you can close those accounts if you want to. And again, I do one every six months.

But if you wanted to continue to use them, you continue to pay them off every month and you like the rewards you're getting, either cash back or maybe travel rewards, then freezing your credit might give you an alternate approach to protecting yourself from identity theft. Thanks for writing to us. And then from an anonymous writer, this is a concerned mom. She says, My son needs help with paying back credit cards and loans. Is there a free service to help?

Thank you very much. And yes, there is a service to help. My preferred way to pay off credit card debt in particular is through what's called debt management. Our friends at Christian credit counselors dot org can help him get the interest rates reduced and pay this off 80 percent faster.

Here's how. When you go into credit counseling or what's called debt management, each of the creditors have a pre-negotiated lower interest rate. Now, the accounts will be closed when they're put into the program. But through the combination of that lower interest rate combined with a level monthly payment, which simply means as the balance comes down because more is going to principle with that level payment, you're actually going to get a snowball effect in the process.

The combination of those two things, the snowball effect through the lower payment and the reduced interest rate is going to allow you to pay this back up to 80 percent faster. The great thing is you're honoring God by paying the debt in full. And it's a great service for you to take advantage of. So if you want to contact them, you can reach out to our friends again at Christian credit counselors dot org. They're all believers.

They've worked with hundreds and hundreds of our listeners. So again, it's Christian credit counselors dot org. And thanks for writing to us. All right.

Let's begin in South Carolina. Jack, go ahead, sir. I have a question regarding a car. I bought a brand new Chevrolet Cruze back in 2014, and I'm going to sell it. And even though I'll be selling it for a fraction of what I paid for it, I wanted to know if I should pay tithes on that. I don't tithe in order to become a Christian, but because I am saved, you know, I practice tithing, and I just want to do the right thing with that.

Yeah, that's great, Jack. I think applying the principle of the tithe that we see under the Old Testament law is a great beginning point for our giving to give a tenth to our local church based on our increase. Now, that's the key word for giving a tithe.

It's based on the increase. So in the case of a car, a depreciating asset, we don't have an increase because we buy it for a certain amount, we drive it, it loses value the moment we drive it off the lot, and that value continues to fall unless it's a collectible or something like that. And if we sell it for less than we purchase, well, we have no increase there, so there is no tithe. Now, you can't out-give God, so if the Lord leads you to do some giving, I'd say go for it.

But with respect to the principle of the tithe, there would not be a tithe on a sale of a car unless it was, let's say, a collectible you were selling for more than you bought it for. Does that make sense? Makes perfect sense, yes sir.

Thank you so much. All right, Jack, I appreciate your call today. You know, when it comes to giving, boy, I love to talk about giving. Giving breaks the grip of money over our lives. You know, money has a tendency to compete with God for first position in our lives if we allow it to. It can have a grip over our lives, and giving, holding God's money loosely, giving it generously, well, it has a way of causing that grip of money over our lives to be freed. And as we think about what God would have us to do in this area, I believe we ought to be looking for ways to increase our giving over time, whether we start with a tithe and then use a progressive giving schedule that bumps up that giving 1% a year. Well, that's ultimately between you and the Lord. There's not a right or wrong way here.

It's not about legalism or checking a box. But we do recognize that it's a privilege and an opportunity to be partnered with God where he's at work, starting with our local church and then well beyond that. So whether you're giving to American Family Radio or whatever it might be, you can know that your heart is there and that you're invested in God's activity. We love to talk about generosity. To Arkansas.

Hey, Warren, go ahead, sir. Yes, I've got a question about liquidating a 401k account in order to take those funds to pay off an automobile. And then the payments we've been paying on the automobile apply that to our mortgage to reduce our interest liability over time. And just not knowing what's going to happen in the future is 401k and how much I could grow or lose that money. The math I've done comes out saving one hundred and fifty thousand in interest over the lifetime of the mortgage.

So you weren't factoring in compounded growth on that 401k when you did that calculation. Is that right? Correct. Yeah.

I mean, that would be the only thing I would say. What is your age? Forty three. And what do you have in that 401k today?

Between my wife and I, we're about the same age. She's got one hundred and fifty in hers. I've got about one hundred mine and I'm looking to liquidate about sixty five to get to the free cash I need to pay off an automobile. OK. And how much of your income collectively are you all putting into 401ks on a monthly basis? I do about seven percent currently that comes with issues with an off 401k.

So hers is from a rollover previous job. OK. And are they matching any portion of that seven? Yeah, I think it's six percent. OK, so that six would be on top of the seven you're putting in or are you factoring that in? No, that's the sixth on top of my seven.

OK. Yeah. So you've got 13 percent going into 401ks, but not based on your total income. That's just based on your income alone.

So if you factor your wife's income in there, obviously it'd be a fraction of that, depending on what portion she's bringing in. You know, we would love for you to have 10 to 15 percent going in to retirement accounts just as a rule of thumb. Now, that doesn't replace some real retirement planning where you actually look at what is it going to take to fund our lifestyle in retirement.

And you can use rules of thumb there. Typically, folks live on about 75 percent of their pre-retirement income. And so if we run the math, we can know, OK, we need this amount in retirement assets to convert that to an income stream that will last for the rest of our lives alongside retirement and fund our expenses.

So I would encourage you to do some of that planning. But just as a rule of thumb, a starting place, 10 to 15 percent of your total income going into retirement plans would be good. As much as I want you to be debt free and I like the idea of you eliminating that payment and then rolling that into the mortgage and all of that, I don't love you pulling that out of the 401k because you're going to pay a penalty on it of 10 percent and it's going to be taxable. So now we add $63,000 to your taxable income for the year, which may push a portion of that up into a higher bracket. It's likely down with everybody else's 401k. So now we don't have a chance for that to recover. You know that on top of the fact that now that money is not there to compound and grow.

I get the interest savings, but I think if we look at the benefit of you continuing to grow that for the future, I like that better. So I want to talk about this more with you. I've got to take a break. You stay right there. We'll finish up on the other side. Just a quick reminder, we're not here today, so don't call in.

Much more coming just after this. Stay with us. You're listening to Faith and Finance Live, and you can find us online at faithfi.com. However, today we are not live. So if you hear that phone number, please don't call.

But do stay with us. There's lots of good information ahead. Just before the break, we were talking to Warren in Arkansas. He was thinking about pulling some money out of a 401k to pay off a car so that he can free up that monthly payment and then start putting that toward his mortgage to try to get out of debt quicker. He has run some numbers on the total interest he could save by doing that. What I was saying, Warren, is that's going to be expensive money, 10% penalty, plus it's all going to be taxable in the year you withdraw it. We don't give it a chance to recover. Your most powerful wealth building tool is your income plus compounding over time, and we're missing out on that by pulling that money out.

As much as I love for you to be debt free, my preference would be that you really try to dial back lifestyle to free up margin so that you can go after that car payment more aggressively without having to pull out of the 401k for the reasons that I mentioned. But give me your thoughts on all that. Yeah, I mean, it makes sense. The only thing I was thinking of on the tax piece was I'm paying taxes on it now. I'm going to pay taxes when I take it out, and we don't know what taxes look like in the future. Could they be 10% higher now? But the other piece on the compound, I didn't calculate that yet. So whatever the annual compound growth is on average, what does that look like in 30 years or whatever? So that's the piece I think I'm missing to make all the numbers make sense to me, I guess.

Yeah, that's right. And going back to the taxes for a second, though, you're right. Tax rates may be higher. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that Trump put in place expire in 2025.

So unless we have an administration who's going to continue that, they're going up. But with that penalty, though, you'd have to have a delta of more than 10% for you to be in the money. So even if rates were 10% higher than they are today, you're still break even because of that penalty. So I think for that reason and the compounding, I'd leave that money there. If you want to do anything to accelerate debt payoff and you don't feel like you can squeeze more out of the monthly budget, then maybe back down slightly your new contributions to your 401k as opposed to pulling out.

But I would still make sure you put in at least enough to fully maximize the match. But you could back it down to that number maybe temporarily to try to get that car paid off a little quicker. But that would be my best advice, my friend. We appreciate your call today.

God bless you to Michigan. Hi, Richard. Go ahead.

Thank you for taking my call. I'll try to explain this the best I can. OK. If someone wants me to cosign for a loan, how is this for an idea? I borrow the money, give it to them if they will cosign for me and then make the payments.

Yeah. So you always go after they always go after the cosigner and that would be him. Well, they go after whoever has the money. So it really doesn't matter who is maybe in first position, if you will, because as a cosigner, you both are equally responsible for the debt. So in the event that somebody doesn't pay the scheduled payment or pay it off when it comes due, if it balloons at the end, they're going to go after both of you. And whoever has the ability to pay, that's the person that is going to be on the hook for it. And in the event that neither of you pay it, then you're both going to have the damage to your credit report and potentially a judgment against you.

So unless I'm missing something with your scenario, and I appreciate you getting creative on this, I don't think it helps that you're doing it and then bringing that person along with you. Because again, as a cosigner, you're both equally and fully responsible for the debt. That makes sense.

Yeah. You know that what we see, I mean, the reason God's word I think is, well, we know God's word is true, because the Lord said it. But we see that substantiated in just practice. The Federal Trade Commission tells us that about 50% of the time you cosign for somebody, you're going to need to step in and make the payments at some point, or the debt is going to default. And that just makes logical sense, right? If they can't qualify on their own, there's a reason for that. They've had poor credit in the past, they have, they don't have good financial disciplines, they don't have the income, the money to support it. So we're actually helping them beyond what the industry standards would say, qualify for a loan they wouldn't otherwise qualify for. And so it stands to reason that in about half the cases, we're going to have to step in. The problem is the damage to the relationship, you know, money issues are hard issues. And that the damage, the collateral damage to the relationship, I think is the real problem. So I would say, first of all, just avoid it. And if you ever cosign for somebody just go into it on the front end, being ready, willing and able to step in and pay it off in full.

Otherwise, just make it a gift. Richard, we appreciate your comments, my friend. Thanks for being on the program. To Georgia.

Hi, Sam, go ahead. Quick question years ago, I was involved in a building program and we use church bonds to finance the building. I'm in a congregation, considering a building program, just looking for some, maybe some advice, do's and don'ts, places to consider if we need to borrow money and your thoughts on that. Yeah, that's a great question. You know, I think the first question you've got to decide is, are we willing to borrow for this? And you might say, well, I don't think we can do it without it.

And that may be true. I was involved in a building campaign as a finance chairman for a large church in South Florida years ago. And we needed to do we felt like we needed more facilities, it was a $6 million project. And we said, we're only going to pay with cash. And as the money comes in, we're going to do it we the GC, the general contractor knew that on the front end that we were going to pay as we go, we were wise about it in terms of not kicking off the project until we had a good bit of it not only committed but in the door. But the GC knew that we may have to slow down or stop at some point if the money's not there, because we're just absolutely committed to being debt free.

Now, I'm not saying that's absolutely how you have to do it. But I think you at least need to have that conversation on the front end around are we comfortable borrowing for this? Or do we want to, you know, pay for it with cash?

Beyond that, you know, I think you need to look at a great partner, I would throw out one option for you to consider. And that's a Christian Community Credit Union. They've funded over a billion dollars in ministry loans, they'd be a great partner for you on this.

And so once you have that conversation about your willingness to borrow, then I'd find a partner that can help you execute on it. Check it out at join Christian community.com. That's join Christian community.com. Sam, thanks for your call today. All right, we're gonna head to a break.

So don't go anywhere. Still a lot more to come, even though we're away from the studio today, and you shouldn't call in. We have some great questions that you're really going to enjoy as we continue to apply God's wisdom to your financial decisions. We'll be right back. Well, if God owns it all, and He does, that makes us stewards or managers of God's money. We want to be found faithful and we want to help you do that on this program each day. Hey, before we head back to the phones, which we'll do in just a moment, let me ask you a question. Are you looking to be a good and faithful steward?

Well, you're not alone. You can join thousands of others on a similar stewardship journey by signing up for your free FaithFi account today. Whether you've been entrusted with much or maybe you're struggling to make ends meet, we all need tools and people to help us on our stewardship journey. And that's exactly why we built the FaithFi app. It has tools, content, and community to help you grow as a faithful steward of God's resources. So if you haven't already, be sure you check out the FaithFi app today. We'd love to have you join our community. You can simply head to faithfi.com. That's faithfi.com or search for FaithFi in your app store. All right, back to the phones.

We go to Illinois. Hi, George. Thanks for your patience, sir. Go ahead. Yes, this is Mary. I'm George's wife. Oh, no problem.

Go right ahead. That's fine. I was wondering what 30% I heard you say that we should never exceed 30% of our total income. And so I figured when I done that, or the net would be 60 for us, what would that actually come up to each month so that we know that we would not exceed that? And the other 70, do we invest it or what does that mean exactly?

Yeah. And perhaps maybe I wasn't clear or you misunderstood slightly, Mary, because I'm not sure where the 30% is coming from. I do often give rules of thumb. For instance, I've I will often say we don't want to have more than 25% of our take home pay going to our mortgage payment, the principal interest taxes and insurance. So if you own a home, you have a mortgage payment, you want to try to keep that total payment, including taxes and insurance under 25% of your take home pay, so that you've got enough left for everything else. And that would give you 75 for everything else. We talked the other day about what we call the big three, which are our three largest expenses for most people in their budget.

It's the housing, transportation and food. And you want to try to keep those three together, all the housing costs, all your transportation costs like your car payment and insurance and gas, plus all the food in your budget under 65% of your take home pay. So you've got 35% for everything else. So those are rules of thumb. But there would be no way that you could unless you are just living very modestly and have a pretty large income, there'd be no way you could just live on 30% and save 70.

You know, unless you were in a really unusual situation. Well, we have our home paid for. We just purchased another home for 320,000. And we just sold our present home which is paid for. We are closer to 70. And we are getting 255 for that. And where we are moving, everything's going up a bit.

Yes. So I'm just trying to figure, you know how we would budget that because you usually say six months worth of savings. So I was just trying to figure out how I can carry what we should not exceed per month or what would be within, plus we have a net of about, excuse me, gross income total, all of our worth like 850,000 which we just took out. Well, without any tax penalties or our Roth, we took out 212, 96. And then out of our savings, we had 78 and we took out about 1213.

I'm just trying to figure what we should not exceed. Got it. Let's do this. I'd love to have someone help you with that because I think having somebody who could help you look at the numbers and build that budget could, you know, really give you some peace of mind, Mary. We have a team of what we call certified Christian financial counselors here at Faithfi. And I'd love to have one of our counselors give you a call and set up a time for you and George to get together over the phone or maybe a video conference.

And he or she, whichever certified Christian financial counselor you connect with will help you set up that budget and tally those numbers and make sure you have a plan that makes sense based on the income that you have. Would that be helpful? Yeah, that would be fine. Okay.

And we won't, there won't be any charge for that. We're going to offer that to you just as part of our service to you. So Mary, you stay on the line. We'll get your information and get one of our certified Christian financial counselors in touch with you. God bless you. To Texas, Michael, you're next in the program, sir.

Go ahead. I am a CPA of 52 years and I wanted to comment on your talking, speaking about the tithe. It says in Malachi that bring you all the tithe into the storehouse and prove me if I'll not open up the windows of heaven and pour out blessings and I'll rebuke the devour. That's God's promise for provision and protection.

As an accountant, we had a rather large practice. What I've always noticed and I've never heard this from other accountants or others is that those people who are not tithers, they haven't given the first fruits, they haven't put God, they always seem to have more medical and casualty losses on Schedule A than any others. While you're tithers, they're taken care of.

God watches over them because his promise is true that he will rebuke the devour. So that's just my comment. Well, Michael, I appreciate that. I mean, you've obviously lived this. This is your experience. You're right in quoting God's word.

It's the one place that God says we can test him in his word. And so I love that. And absolutely crank it through your calculator. It doesn't necessarily make sense that we could live on 90% better than 100. And yet that's just for those who are generous givers.

That's just the reality. And it's not that God is a cosmic vending machine where we only give to get those blessings may come in a variety of fashions and forms. But I think when we recognize the truth of God's word and what you just said, Michael, on top of the fact that it's a privilege to be partnered with God and where he's at work, and we can do that by being a pipeline by taking a portion of what he's entrusted to us and then putting it back into circulation and to God's economy. It just makes sense. And there's fruit and blessing that comes from that, that can take on a variety of forms. But I appreciate that testimony, my friend. We're right in sync with you.

And we believe here at Faith and Finance that being generous is one of the great privileges we have of stewards of God's resources. Thanks for being on the program today. Let's head to Georgia. Nick, go ahead. Hi, thank you, Rob, for taking my call.

I had a question for you. I have some credit card debt, roughly about four thousand dollars. And I paid for I pay more than the minimum payment per month. I pay weekly.

You know, I pay like 50 bucks a week instead of the fifty dollar minimum payment a month. My wife and I were discussing about possibly taking because I've got a life insurance policy, possibly borrowing a loan against that to pay for the credit card debt rather than paying two separate bills and just pay the one you know, the one bill per year type thing or per month or however, however I'm able to do it. Yeah. I just want to know if that would be something that would be smart.

Yeah. I mean, I get why you'd want to do that, because obviously you're paying that back to yourself as opposed to those high interest rates on the credit card. My experience is, though, Nick, when we do that, it kind of takes the pressure off because we no longer feel the pinch of that high interest and therefore we just get lax in paying it back. So my preference would be that you use a debt management program. Use our friends at Christian credit counselors dot org to get that interest rate down. Send that same amount you're sending every month, but do it at a lower interest rate.

That'll help you pay it off 80 percent faster. Christian credit counselors dot org. Well, folks, we're going to take one more quick break and then back with our final segment today. But if you need assistance from a financial or legal professional, we'd love for you to visit faith five dot com and click find a C.K.A. and that's faith five dot com and click find a C.K.A.

That stands for Certified Kingdom Advisor, our preferred designation for financial advice from the biblical world. We're back with much more just around the corner. Stick around. Thanks for joining us today on Faith and Finance Live here in our final segment of the broadcast today.

Let me remind you, our team is not here, so don't call in. But we lined up some great questions in advance. We'll get to those in just a moment. Before we do, let me remind you, if you haven't downloaded the faith five app, we'd love for you to check it out. It's got three sections in it. The first is the money management system based on Larry Burkett's digital envelope system and helps you manage God's money in a way where you know exactly what's left in each envelope at any point during the month. There's also our learn tab where you can access the best content and biblical finance to grow in your understanding of God's way of handling money and our community where you can post questions, get comments and ideas from other stewards on the journey. So download it today on our website, faith five dot com.

Just click app. All right. Now let's head to Virginia. Joy, go ahead. You're next on the program. Well, I benefit greatly, from your show and greatly appreciate all the information I'm gleaning.

Thank you very much. My question is, I am under contract to sell a piece of land that we have and we will be making about a twenty five thousand dollar profit. Is there capital gains on that? And if there is, is there any thing we can do with that to avoid capital gains? And then I had another follow up with that. OK, very good.

Yeah. So the only way to avoid the capital gain entirely would be if that was your primary residence that you lived to out of the last five years. But given that that's piece of land, I suspect that's not the case. So if it's an investment property, it would be the gain would be taxable. If it's a long term gain, meaning you held it for more than a year, typically you're going to pay a 15 percent capital gain rate.

Most folks do. If you're married filing jointly, that would apply to those. Not the gain, but if your income, your adjusted gross income is between eighty three thousand and five hundred and seventeen thousand, you'll fall into that 15 percent capital gain rate.

If you're married filing jointly and you make your adjusted gross income is less than eighty three thousand, you would have a zero percent capital gains rate. Now, if you do have to end up paying the 15 percent, then the only two ways around that, apart from the fact that it would be your primary residence and you'd have up to a half a million dollars of exclusion on it, would be number one, you give a portion or all of the property away prior to the sale. So you would move it into what's called a donor advised fund prior to the sale. You'd title it in the name of the donor advised fund or gift it to the donor advised fund. And then when it's sold, that money would go into your donor advised fund and then it'd have to be given away. And so if you wanted to use that to, let's say, replace giving you're already planning on doing out of cash, out of savings, then you could avoid the capital gains by putting the property in. So when it's sold, it's not taxable because it's already been given away. The second option is what's called the 1031 exchange, which is basically where you want to take the proceeds and invest it in another investment property. Then essentially you can kick the can down the road where you don't have to pay the capital gains. Now you can roll 100 percent into this next property that you'd have to purchase within 180 days and then you'd ultimately pay the capital gains down the road when you sell that property. But it allows you to avoid it paying on it right now. I've thrown a lot at you there.

Give me your questions and thoughts. Well, my question is we've only had it eight months, so we haven't even had it a year. So am I going to be hit harder or? Yes. So that would be a short term capital gain, which means you're taxed at the same rate as your ordinary income. So whatever tax bracket you fall into, it would be considered taxable income, the gain portion.

Okay. And one more question affiliated with that is I have about $10,000 in credit card debt and they're all two of them under zero percent, you know, just for a promo. Would I be wise to take the capital gains that we are making that we don't have to pay taxes and pay off those credit cards since they're at a zero, but they are of course going to be up next year, the promotions?

Yeah, I like that a lot. I don't think there's any reason to be carrying credit card debt. I'd love for you all, despite the fact that you're in this promotion period right now, as you said, that's going to come to an end and you don't want to have to get into the game of doing the balance transfers. And every time you do that, you're going to have probably a two to three percent fee on the total balance. So yeah, I would just take this opportunity to wipe that out.

Okay. Even though the money that I, if I took the money and didn't pay these off until the promotion was up, I have a five percent interest that I'm making. And would that make sense just to put most of the money or all of the rest of the capital gains in that account gain five percent interest? And then at the last possible moment, take the money out and pay them off. Yes, ma'am.

That's a good idea, actually. So yeah, you could take that because interest rates are up right now and we can actually get a decent return on high yield savings. Yeah.

As long as you're watching that closely and get that paid off on a timely basis, once that rate's about to expire, I don't have any problem with you trying to maximize the return on the proceeds after the taxes are allocated and then paying that debt off right as that promotional period ends. Okay, great. That answers my question. God bless you so much.

You too. Let me just circle back to two things. One is if there is a way to wait to get beyond the one year mark, that would benefit you because you drop from your current tax bracket down to that 15 percent. Again, if you're between $80,000 and half a million on adjusted gross income, that may not be possible, but if it is, it may be worth looking at. And then secondly, if you want to do any giving out of that money or there's giving you are planning on doing out of money you already have in your savings account and you want to do it out of this instead, you could look at putting a portion of this into a donor advised fund prior to the sale and on that portion.

And again, it doesn't have to be all of it. You could skip the capital gains on that portion. So I just want to make sure you're aware of that because that's an often overlooked tool that can allow you to pay less tax, do giving either beyond what you were planning or in place of giving you already planning and it's pretty simple to do.

Okay, now we are newly retired, so our income, you know, courses dropped from what we had. So do you think our rate would still be fairly high taxes? Well, it's it's going to be somewhere between 10 and 37 percent probably on the lower end. So it would in terms of the actual rate for this year, you know, it would be I think the tax bracket.

What is your are you all married filing jointly? Yes, sir. Okay, so it probably end up being if is your income going to be below $89,000? Yes, sir.

Yeah. So you'd probably be at a 12 percent tax bracket. So not it may even be less than you know, then. Well, if it's below $89,000 and it's a long term gain, your capital gain would be zero. So if you could get to the one year market, you probably wouldn't have a capital gain. But if it's basically based on your taxable income, it would probably be at 12 percent.

So not too bad. But just make sure you account for that and set that money aside. Okay. Oh, yes, sir. I sure will. And thank you so much, Jim. You're welcome, Joy. God bless you. We appreciate you calling today.

We've covered a lot of ground today. Let me mention one thing about financial regrets. You know, pastor and author Warren Wiersbe once said, Most Christians are being crucified on a cross between two thieves yesterday's regret and tomorrow's worries. And while worry fills people with fear about the future, regret anchors us in the past. One thing to note on these two emotions, they focus things on what we can't control the past and the future. So I want to take a moment and just hear at the end of the program before we wrap up today, let me talk about financial regrets, because I hear from so many people who are kind of stuck in this regrets, of course, or feelings of shame and remorse about things we've done or experienced or maybe even in some cases, things we've failed to do. Well, in financial matters, you might regret getting into debt or buying a house that was too much for you or not buying a house. You could regret co-signing a loan. We talked about that today or spending too much at Christmas.

You might regret not teaching your teenager about finances sooner or taking a loan for college or buying that electronic item you didn't need. It could be any number of things and they surface in our lives these regrets because of mistakes or unfulfilled expectations or even sin on your part or someone else's. But here's the good news.

Let me encourage you with this as we wrap up today. You know, if it's a sin that's causing you to really trip up, there's a remedy for that. That Jesus died and rose again to make us right with God when we turn to him. 1 John 1 9 tells us, if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. For mistakes and disappointments that cause regret, we can also turn to Christ.

Let me take you to Romans 8 1. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ from the law of sin and death. Now, what if your regret is caused by someone else?

Well, you can free them and yourself through forgiveness because in Christ you have been forgiven. Colossians 3 13 says, forgive as the Lord forgave you. And then finally, Romans 8 37 confirms that we have power over regrets through Christ who loves us. So if you're burdened by regrets about the past, give them to the Lord.

Here's a final word, one that you won't regret from evangelist Billy Graham, who said, I have never known anyone to accept Christ's redemption and later regret it. Hey, I hope today's broadcast has been an encouragement to you as we talked about how to apply God's wisdom to your financial decisions and choices. Boy, we covered a lot of ground today. I'm so grateful that you share your stories with us and call with your questions. By the way, we'll do it all again tomorrow.

So I hope you'll come back and join us then. Faith and finance live is a partnership between Moody radio and faith five. Thank you to my amazing broadcast team. I couldn't do this without them. I hope you have a great rest of your day and we'll see you next time on faith and finance live.