God’s Generosity Changes Us

I'm sure you've heard the saying, you can't outgive God. It sounds good, but is it biblical?

Hi, I'm Rob West. Even though the phrase isn't found in the Bible, it's giving us an excuse to talk about the amazing life-changing generosity of God. We'll do that today, 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. Well, that quote, you can't outgive God, is what Insight for Living author Steve Johnson calls bumper sticker theology.

There is a grain of truth there, but there's so much more to it than that. As Christians, we are called to go beyond the bumper sticker, allowing the reality of God's grace to change our hearts. It's absolutely true that God is the greatest giver, for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. John 3 16 is the bedrock of our faith. Unfortunately, when it comes to imitating the generosity of God, we will always fall short. He does outgive us every time. So does that mean we can skip being generous because we can't do it perfectly?

Of course not. Perhaps generous giving seems out of reach for you. You're afraid you won't have enough for yourself or your family's needs if you give too much. Now let me reassure you, when God calls you to share what you have with someone in need, he is more than able to meet your needs in return.

It's a matter of trust. So here's how God's generosity changes us. The magnitude of God's gift is impossible to ignore. God died to save you from the consequences of your sin, not because of anything you did. He did it while you were still a sinner. Romans 5 8 reads, God demonstrated his love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

That's generosity beyond anything you or I can imagine, and deserves a response. As a Christian and a child of God, you are on a journey of faith that includes learning to trust God's faithfulness more and more. According to Galatians 2 20, you have been crucified with Christ. It's no longer you who live, but Christ who lives in you. Generosity is one way you can demonstrate your trust in God, and your desire to be a part of his kingdom work. Fear of not having enough is one way you might miss out on the blessings of generosity.

There are of course others. Perhaps you hope to win God's favor by giving, or maybe you expect to be rewarded with material success when you're generous. Unfortunately, neither of these expectations is biblical. We're not trying to outgive God. We're not in competition with the Lord or with each other. As for earning God's favor, we already have it. It's called grace, and it's not something we can ever earn.

What we can do is offer grace to others. As it says in Ephesians 4 32, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you. What about those who expect God to reward them for being generous? Do we give in order to get something from God? Author Steve Johnson explains it this way, we are not to give to get earthly reward, expecting God to always give us back in this life what we invest in the kingdom. We should give without care for the earthly reward of financial prosperity.

Instead, seek the heavenly reward of God himself. When we understand God's generosity towards us, it changes the nature of our giving and our attitude about all money and possessions. King David is an example of this right attitude about giving.

In 1 Chronicles 29 14, David praises God for his abundant provision to build the temple, even though the raw materials came from the people's gifts. But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this? Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand.

David demonstrates gratitude and gives God the glory. Like a loving father, God shows us through Jesus how to love and give and live in the right way. When we follow Christ in our generosity, we experience the blessing of serving others in his name. Sometimes the Lord provides additional material blessings so that we can continue giving. Of course, we can't out-give God, but we can be the hands and feet of Christ in the world. As you mature in your faith, growing in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, as it says in 2 Peter 3 8, the Holy Spirit is making changes in your heart. You will want to respond to God's grace by being generous in turn.

Best of all, when we serve and give generously, we experience a closer walk with the giver himself. All right, your calls are next. The number is 800-525-7000. That's 800-525-7000. You can call that number 24 seven. I'm Rob West, and we'll be right back after this break. Stick around. The opinions offered during this program represent the personal or professional opinions of the participants given for informational purposes only.

Any information provided is not intended to replace advice from a financial, medical, legal, or other professional who understands your specific situation. I'm so thankful you've joined us today for Faith and Finance live here on Moody Radio. I'm Rob West. All right, it's time to take your calls and questions today.

Let's dive into what you're thinking about financially, help you process that through the lens of scripture, a biblical worldview, and see if we can help you make a decision on something. As you head into the weekend, we want you to have some confidence and some peace of mind as you steward all that God has entrusted to you. So the one thing left is for you to pick up the phone. 800-525-7000. That's 800-525-7000.

You can call right now. Also coming up in our final segment today, Jerry Boyer will stop by, our resident economist. Jerry's always full of insightful information. He'll be sharing with us about the strength in the market.

We capped off the week with another strong week in the stock market on the heels of the Fed decision alongside a soft jobs report. Jerry will remind us about this upside down economy where we're in, where a slowing economy is actually celebrated by the market because, well, that means maybe the Fed will not continue to keep rates so high quite as long. But Jerry will weigh in on all of it a little later in the broadcast. All right, let's begin to take your calls today. Again, phone lines are open.

You can call right now at 800-525-7000. And Laura is our phone screener today. She'll be receiving your call.

Let's start in, let's see, Lake Worth, Florida. Hi, Charlene. Go right ahead. Hi, Rob. Thank you so much for taking my phone call.

Sure. I am a single 76-year-old young woman. I live alone.

I'm single. I have my own home. I don't owe any money on anything. My home, I have probably a little over $600,000 invested in it. If I was to sell it, my realtor says I could get over a million dollars for it.

Wow. At this point, after remodeling it for the last two and a half years, I'd really like to stay and enjoy it. But I only have $80,000 in a cash account.

It's making less than three and a half percent. I earn $2,000 from Social Security. That's my check that comes in every month. My bills, I like to live well. I like to go out for dinner. I'm a member of Kravitz Season ticket holder. And I don't know what to do.

Yeah. Well, I can certainly appreciate that, Charlene, because you have this beautiful home. As you said, you're 76 years young. You want to be able to enjoy it. You like going out to the theater.

And I know the Kravitz Center well being from Fort Lauderdale. But you've got this huge asset that you're sitting on. And, you know, your bills are probably right up to the edge with your, you know, your fixed income there on Social Security.

So what do you do with that? Well, let me suggest you consider and listeners may be surprised when I say this, consider a reverse mortgage. Now, here's why. And let me put a big disclaimer on the front end of this. These are not my first choice, because as we talk often about this on this program, you know, I love the idea of pursuing this goal of being debt-free over your lifetime and getting completely out of debt, including your home, by the time you retire, which keeps your lifestyle as low as possible and keeps you unencumbered. And when we look at the Council of Scripture, although borrowing is not a sin, you know, there are clear warnings about borrowing. And, you know, there are clear warnings about the use of debt. Now, if you are going to use debt, there are some rules that I think you should follow. So only borrow when you have an appreciating asset. Well, that would certainly be your home. Only borrow when you have spousal unity. If you're married, understand you're single. Make sure that there are no other alternatives.

I mean, so we can kind of run through the list. But the benefit of a reverse mortgage in your situation would be essentially where you could begin to systematically, you know, for the rest of your life, pull out a monthly amount out of your home in the form of, you know, an income, a check. And you would never have to repay that. In fact, the home equity conversion mortgage, which is the fancy name for a reverse mortgage, is backed by the Federal Housing Administration. So regardless of how long you live, you'll never have to pay it back until you die or leave the house, which means that, you know, your estate, unless you were to sell it, move somewhere else, your estate would take care of that whatever is owed on the reverse mortgage that you pull out throughout the rest of your life. But the key is they are not allowed to get more than the home is worth. Now, I realize, you know, it'd take you a long time in monthly checks to pull out over a million dollars.

So I'm not even thinking you would get there. But even if you did, one of the benefits of the home equity conversion mortgage is they can't collect more than what the home will bear on the market when it's sold at your death. And so if there's a shortfall, meaning they paid out more than your home is worth, well, that's where the Federal Housing Administration steps in and they pay the rest to the lender. So you never, you know, you'd know that you'd never owe anything more than what your house is worth. And it would be a way that you could enjoy being able to systematically pull that equity out to, you know, significantly increase the monthly income you have available. And you could stay right there. Now, if at some point you decided to move or you wanted to downsize, the home became too much for you.

Maybe you needed to move into assisted living or, you know, nursing home. Well, whatever was owed at the time of the sale, you would have to pay that back. There's an interest rate embedded in this.

Even though there's no payments, you are accruing interest on what's paid out to you. But that would be one thing that would come to mind that would allow you to stay there and increase your income. But give me your thoughts on that. Well, it sounds interesting, but those reverse mortgages have had a bad rap.

Yeah. And that's why you need to have someone that really understands them, because they're not all created equal. I mean, I wouldn't I wouldn't be following a phone number on an ad you see on the television. I would I would talk to whether there's only one place I would go that I would trust, which is Movement Mortgage.

I'd go to movement dot com slash faith, fill out the information. And, you know, when that somebody reaches out to you, tell them you want to talk to the the area that handles reverse mortgages, because I agree with you. They're not all created equal. The fees can be, you know, very high. But if you get a great, you know, a quality reverse mortgage where the fees are in line, the interest rates in line, it could do exactly what you're talking about, which is boost your income, keep you in the house, never have to make a payment and never you're not even personally obligated. Basically, the the only collateral is the home. Now, what you said that it never goes over if, if once I die, and the houses has to be sold, or they have to retrieve their money. But what happens if the house is worth more than what the reverse mortgage was meant for? Oh, yeah, all you have to pay is what you owe in the amount that was paid out to you plus the interest and fees. And undoubtedly, there would be quite a bit of equity left.

And all of that would be in your estate and then able to be given away charitably or pass on to your heirs, you only owe up to what was paid out, but never more than the value of the home. Okay, yeah, you think this is probably the best way to go? Do you have any other suggestions? Well, the only other suggestion would just be, you know, to stay right there and, you know, just live modestly on 2000 a month. Because apart from that, really, the only other option is to sell and downsize and put a portion of the proceeds to work because you'd get a million dollars out.

Maybe you buy a townhouse for, you know, 500,000 and you got another 500,000 that can generate income. Let's talk a bit more off the air. We'll be right back. Well, I'm so glad you joined us today on Faith and Finance Live.

I'm Rob West. Hey, before we head back to the phones, let me remind you, Faith and Finance Live is listener supported, which just simply means we can only do what we do on this program every day because of your generous support. And here at the final two months of the year, this is an important time for us to hear from listeners who would like to financially support our work with a tax deductible gift. When you head to faithfi.com, that's faith f i dot com, you can click the give button. And if you found something valuable here, maybe it's been an encouragement to you, you listen regularly, but you've never supported the ministry, a gift of any amount would go a long way to helping us reach our goal between now and December 31st. So if you'd perfectly consider a gift, we'd certainly be grateful.

Again, faithfi.com, just click give and thanks in advance. All right, we've got a few lines open today. If you have a financial question, we're taking those at 800-525-7000.

Again, that number 800-525-7000. Let's go to Macon, Georgia. Hi Erin, go ahead. Erin, are you with us? All right, let's work on that, see if we can get Erin back on the line. We'll go to Longview, Texas. Hi Debbie, how can I help you?

Hi there. So I have a huge, huge student loan. It's over $240,000 and I have just recently secured myself a job and I do not think I'm going to be able to manage their minimum monthly payments because my balance is so big and it's at a six point something percent interest rate and I don't know what to do. I don't know if I need to quit my job and live in poverty or I mean I can't get through to them. You know, I'm on hold for over an hour and my phone runs out of power. I don't know what to do. Yeah, well I'm so sorry to hear about that.

I know that's got to be weighing on you, Debbie. Are these federal student loans? Yes. Okay, so there are options for you. I mean, one of the benefits of the federal loan program through the Department of Education is what's called income-driven repayment plans and so there are options for you to go on one of the IVRs, the income-based repayment plans that basically, you know, allow you to only pay what you're able based on what you have available. So, you know, if you're not a new borrower generally it's 15% of your discretionary income that you will have to pay on one of these income-based plans. So I would, you know, I realize that it's probably not easy to get through and maybe it's, you know, it's going to take some time but I would reach out to your student loan servicer and talk to them about one of these income-based repayment plans because I realize it's a huge number and that's okay, you know, it's there but you want to make sure that what you are paying fits into what you have available so you can cover all of your other bills and even though you're probably not making a whole lot of progress toward paying it off, the key is that you keep it current and, you know, one of these features of these federal loan programs is that, you know, you can go on one of these income-based plans.

So are you familiar with that idea? Yeah, I actually, I'm on that plan. I am actually on that plan but I have a zero payment but now that I have a job I fear that even the lowest percent that they say you need to pay is going to be more than what I can afford and still get by on what I earn. Yeah, I get it and maybe you're going to need to take a hard look at the rest of your expenses but it's not going to be more than 10 to 15 percent of your discretionary income so whatever your discretionary income is they will make sure that it gets capped at no more than 15 percent and if your income is low enough your payment could be as low as zero on one of these plans. I mean, it really just, you know, depends upon what you have available so I would say, you know, reach out to them, find out what your options are, get them to tell you what your payment is going to be once you provide the documentation about your income and then you're just going to have to make those hard choices on how you reorder your finances, you know, to get the spending in line. So I would take that as a next step here, Debbie. Do the work to get, you know, through to somebody and give them the information they need and let's find out what you'll actually be paying.

You might be surprised that it's quite a bit lower than you expected. So if we can help further along the way, let us know. You can do this, Debbie. You're going to be okay.

Let's just get in touch with your student loan servicer. Thanks for calling today. God bless you. Let's go back to Macon.

I think we have Aaron with us now. Go ahead, sir. Hey, Rob. Just want to thank you for all that you've done. I've been listening to the show for a couple years now and definitely have quite a lot of your advice and done it very well. Well, thanks. I appreciate that.

Absolutely. So my wife and I had an interesting spot. So we're 22.

We will have our first little girl coming in about a month. Congrats. That's awesome. Yeah.

Thank you. After emergency fund and we have about 20,000 saved, the house, we have about 20,000 left to pay for that. And then I just got my work where I'm available to get into my 401k 3% match and make about 40, 50,000 a year. We used to make more on two incomes, but now my wife's not working to be with the kid.

So my question is, is this 20,000, we could go ahead and get the house paid off or we can go ahead and put an initial investment of 5 to 10,000 in my 401k or, and also we're thinking about for a kid, getting one of those funds that you can put money into. And by the time they're 18, they can pull it out. I forget what they were called, but you talked about it a while back on the show. Yeah. 529 plan maybe. Yeah. Something like that.

Yeah. And the other side of this is my wife was working here. We can start a Roth IRA for her. However, this will be the last year she'll be able to do it.

She is still making money, but it's on the side. Okay. Cool. Yeah.

No, that's really helpful. Listen, I've got to take a quick break, but I've got this detail here and we'll talk about it on the other side. We'll be right back. Hey, great to have you with us today on faith and finance live. I'm Rob last.

I've got a couple of lines open, 800-525-7000. Hey, just before the break, we were talking to Aaron in Macon, Georgia, Aaron and his wife are a young couple in their early twenties. They've got, uh, uh, their first child on the way. Aaron, did you say it's a little girl? Is that right? Yeah. A little girl, uh, name.

Come on. That's incredible. Now, did you get permission from your wife to tell the whole world what her name was going to be? Uh, no, that's great.

We will tell everybody to keep it on the down low. Uh, no, that's great. And they're, uh, you know, they're thinking about just how they set themselves up, you know, well, financially, Aaron.

I mean, first of all, you guys are doing an incredible job. I mean, here you are in your early twenties, you've got your emergency fund fully funded. You've got an additional 20,000. Uh, your house is able to be paid off right now.

And if not, you're not too far away at only 20,000 left. I realize you were living on a double income, which is probably how you've been accelerating this payoff. Now, as your wife kind of comes out, uh, you know, from paid work to some incredible work, raising your sweet little Ruth and, uh, you guys are going to have less income. So obviously you're just wondering, how do you kind of manage all this now?

A couple of questions for you. One would be, what is the interest rate on that mortgage? Interest rate. So we're 20,000 left to pay for it. We're actually buying the house from family.

It's the old double wide that we're picking up. Okay, cool. You need, you need situations, but with 20,000, it's close to it up or down a little bit. Yeah, but you don't, you're not paying any interest on it. So you don't have a mortgage. You're just buying it outright. Yes.

It's a, it's called owner financing. Yeah. Yeah. So are you living in it currently? Yes.

But that interest rate because it's family is set at zero. Yeah. Okay.

It was kind of incorporated in just the price. I got it. Okay. And then are you, so how much are you spending per month on that? How, what's the payment that you've agreed to? 650.

Okay. Now, assuming you were to keep the, the mortgage around, or in this case, the owner financing at 650 a month. And so you still had that your wife's not working any longer. So that income goes away. So you're, you know, making ends meet on 40 to 50 K. Are you, are you able to go ahead and still fund the retirement plan that, that the company will match every month? I, I believe so.

Okay. What percent of your income do you think you could put in before the match? For the match? It'd be up to the match at least.

But I know Dave Ramsey is always like 15. I think that we could at least do a five to 10. We would like to be at that 15 point, but we're going to try to shoot for 10.

Okay. Well, you know, I think if it were me, I mean, obviously, unless you guys just have a conviction to be debt free and you want to, you know, this is a family member and I realize, you know, when you borrow money from family, it changes the relationship. And so, you know, there's a good case to be made that you guys just want to be out from under this, you know, once and for all. And if so, then don't look back, let's pay it off and be done with it. And that frees up six 50 a month.

And that's great. If not, you could hang on to that 20,000 and use that to fund the Roth IRAs for this year, you know, and then turn around and do it right after the first of the year for next year. And I would try to get that, you know, retirement plan up to 20 or up to 10%.

And maybe, you know, with the 3% on top of it, you're at 13%. If you know, but if you if you don't have that conviction, you can hang on to that money, you're not paying any interest. So it really doesn't, you know, be benefit you financially, to pay that off quicker.

And so you might as well hang on to your money, again, unless relationally you want to pay it off, or just from a conviction standpoint, you want to pay it off. The other thing to keep in mind, you mentioned the Roth IRA, even though she's coming out of the workforce, she can still continue to fund that Roth IRA every year as your spouse. So if you're the spouse of a working person, you can, you know, continue to fund up to the limit every year as a spousal IRA contribution, and that includes the Roth.

Okay. So, you know, but in that would also allow you to start putting something systematically into the 529, whether that's a lump sum, you know, payment of a few thousand dollars, I just would prioritize making sure you're putting in a good healthy amount into your 401k and those Roths over the college option, there's other ways to pay for college, she could, you know, I mean, we went through this with my son who just went off to college this year, we, you know, every night, he'd be up in his room, I mean, he's a good student, and he got great grades, and he got, you know, full ride, but he applied for scholarships to go above and beyond tuition to cover some of the room and board and, and some grant money. And so there are other ways to pay for college, there aren't other ways to pay for retirement. So I would make sure that you, you get a good healthy amount, that 10 to 15% going into the retirement plan, make sure you're giving first at the level that you're, you know, you feel like the Lord is leading it to, and then fund those Roth IRAs.

And if you can do that, and then you still have a few thousand dollars to put into the 529, great, do it. Does that make sense? Absolutely. Okay, cool. Well, listen, you guys are doing an awesome job. I'm so excited for you.

Congrats on that new little one. And if I can help further along the way, let me know. Okay. Okay. Awesome. Thanks, Aaron. God bless you, bud. Let's go to West Palm. Hi, Teresa, go ahead. Hi, yes, thank you for taking my call.

Sure. My question is regarding Social Security retirement benefits. I am waiting to turn 70 before applying for Social Security benefits. And I've been told there are two choices to apply six months before the actual birthday. There are some retroactive benefits that I have the choice to take.

There will be less than if I choose the second option, which will be right after the birthday, there will be a different like $117. But I have never heard of that six months before. Yeah, that's true.

I'd be happy to. Yeah. So since you waited until age 70 to take the benefits, you are eligible for this single lump sum payment representing six months worth of Social Security retirement benefits. I wouldn't do this, Teresa, unless it was a dire emergency, because taking this lump sum option will result in permanently lowering the monthly benefit when you receive it. So here are some numbers to consider.

Just an example. So let's say your monthly Social Security benefit will be $2,500 a month and you could get a check for $14,400 if you take the six month lump sum. Your monthly benefit would then drop by about $100 a month. If you don't take the lump sum benefit, it'll take about 12 years to get that lump sum back. But at that point, then your money ahead because you've got this higher check for the rest of your life. So it really just comes down to, you know, life expectancy. And if the Lord tarries and you're in pretty good health and you know, you're here for another 12 years, you will be repaid for everything you would have gotten through the six month lump sum option.

But then you get that higher check for as long as you live. Does that make sense? Yes, it makes sense. Thank you so much. That helps a lot. All right, Teresa, God bless you. Thanks for calling today.

It's so much fun to talk to folks and get invited into your stories and hear what God's doing in your life and even celebrate a new little one along the way. Thanks for your calls today. We're going to do this. We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, Jerry Boyer is going to stop by and then we'll try to tackle a few more questions.

We may have room for one more at 800-525-7000. Hey, big news. Mint is going away.

That's right. The popular budgeting software is being phased out. So if you're a big Mint user, maybe this is a perfect time to check out the Faithfi app. You can do it at faithfi.com. We'll be right back. Great to have you with us today on Faith in Finance Live. I'm Rob West.

Hey, we'll head back to the phones here in just a moment. But first, it's Friday, which means Jerry Boyer is here to give us his update on the markets and the economy. Jerry Boyer, good afternoon, sir. Rob West, good afternoon to you. Glad to have you here.

All right, Jerry, of course, here's the deal. We get a worse than expected payrolls report, less than expected. The Fed says, yeah, the economy is slowing and the market says, woohoo.

And we have one of the best weeks of the year, right? Yep, exactly. That's it. That's Bizarro world. Remember, there was a in the Superman comics, there was a couple of comics where they went to Bizarro world and over there, Superman was a bad guy and everything was upside down. No, I don't know. Maybe Spock had a beard.

I forget what it was. So that's where we are now. So why does it work that way? It's confusing to people. Well, because the central bank, the Fed believes in something called Keynesian economics, which for them means that economic growth causes inflation. So if the economy is slowing down, yippee!

People are having trouble finding jobs? Well, that's great news, because if they're having trouble finding jobs, they won't get raises, they lose bargaining power. And if they lose bargaining power, then we won't get inflation, because they think that high wages leads to inflation. High wages doesn't lead to lead to inflation.

Raises are a good thing. Too much money leads to inflation. I think Ronald Reagan once said, we don't have inflation because the people are living too well. We have inflation because the government is living too well. It's not too many jobs, not too many workers. It's too many dollars that are being created.

But that's not the way they see it. So you know, the Fed has been saying, hey, we have an inflation problem, and we're going to have to slow the economy to get rid of that. And now, oh, yippee, the economy's slowed. So we don't have to fight it anymore. So therefore, the Fed won't have to be pulling money out of the economy trying to slow it down.

And that's how bad economic news leads to good market results. Of course, I can't go on that way forever. In the end, reality reasserts itself. But right now, we're not living with reality. Right now, we're living in the whim world of the Fed. Yeah, no question about it.

That was well said, Jerry. And the other factor here is that obviously everybody is fixated on consumption. How much is the average American consuming? You often remind us of the importance of not consumption, but production. So how do you evaluate the output here in the US currently as a measure of our economic health? Well, we're slow in our output. Now, the third quarter was pretty strong.

But in general, in the past couple of years, we've been slow. And I think, you know, when we did the quarterly call for k members, I showed that if you look at the entire economy, including production, last year, for about half of last year, we were actually negative, we were in a recession, we were in a production recession. And you can't in the end, you can't consume what you don't produce. Everything, everything a consumer buys is something somebody else had to produce. So a non producing economy eventually has to become a non consuming economy. That's, by the way, where if people have heard of supply side economics, and what that's confusing, why is it called that?

Where did it get its name? Well, basically, supply side economics, largely influenced by Christian thinkers is the idea that humans already have infinite demand in economics, their supply and demand, okay. Demand side economics focuses on getting us to demand things. But I think the Christian doctrine of human nature is we already demand things. You know, I mean, it's human nature to demand demand demand, the trick is getting people to supply needs to produce a good or service and service to somebody else.

That's the hard thing. So supply side economics says the real trick to economics isn't getting people to want things. It's getting people to create things. So that we what we need to do is have taxes and regulations, etc, in ways to create the incentives for us actually to produce things.

Hmm, yeah. And then we need companies providing goods and services and staying focused on providing those goods and services, not getting caught up in political endeavors, which is the other thing I want to talk about today. Give us the latest update on what you've been working on with corporate engagement. Well, I think the big one this week is Bank of America. And I have to thank you for this because you were able to connect me with an advisor who had a client who owned enough shares of Bank of America that we could work with them to put a proposal forward, which we did this week.

What's that about? Bank of America cancelled the account of a group called Indigenous Advance, which is a ministry to widows and orphans. Not only that, they cancelled the bank account of the church that sponsored it.

And they didn't give any explanation other than it, quote, doesn't fit our risk profile, whatever that means. I think that, well, look, I don't know why they did it. I do know that among some people that there are a lot of people in the world who don't share our Christian worldview, who think of Christianity as kind of colonial, as an imposition. The missionaries go to indigenous people and ruin them, that we ought to leave them pristine, right? Now, they don't want to be left pristine. People, you know, like to get the gospel. They like to get food, by the way, too. And they like water. They like us to come and, you know, dig clean wells. And they like when we come and bring medicine. So missionaries have done tremendous good in the world.

But not everyone thinks of missionaries positively. So I don't know if that's the motivation or not, because they won't tell us. And if they won't tell us, the idea is take it above the heads, take it above the heads of the managers. And what you do is you put a proposal on the ballot, and it goes in front of the board of directors. And they have to read it, have come to a position on it. And then it also goes to the shareholders themselves. And then it's voted on at the annual meeting. So the idea is the shareholders, the investors, people listening right now who are investors, you are legally the adult supervision of American corporations.

They may think of themselves as masters of the universe, but in the end, they're the hired help. And they need to be reminded of that more often than they have been. Well, and you're doing great work to ensure that that happens, Jerry. And I know you'll keep us updated on this one along the way.

Great update today, Jerry. Great to have you with us today. Have a wonderful weekend. You too.

God bless. All right. That's Jerry Boyer, our resident economist.

He joins us each Friday with his market analysis and commentary. All right, back to the phones. We're going to round out the broadcast today with your questions. Let's go to Indiana.

Hi, Brian. Go ahead, sir. Yes, I own a rental property that's adjoined to my home property. And the renter wants to buy it.

So I'm considering selling it. And he also wants to buy another additional acre behind the property. Yeah. So my question is, am I better off to sell it as one parcel concerning capital gains? And I do like the passive income. So what I'm thinking about is selling the home as is on the land.

Yeah. And then doing like a rent to own or lease to own the additional acre over like a 10-year period just to get me kind of weaned me off that passive income. I've only owned the property for three years. So I don't know if there are other penalties for buying and selling property. I've never done it before. Yeah.

No, there won't be any penalties. And because you've held it for more than a year, you've got long-term capital gains, which for most people that are making, if you're married filing jointly, anywhere between 89,000 and about 450,000 in income, not the gain, but your adjusted gross income, you're going to be at 15% capital gains. So that's going to apply to any sale, whether it's the parcel, if you section that off, you know, section that off or, you know, the home or both. So I think it really you need to decide what do you want to be left with in the end, both in terms of your total portfolio, including the income generation piece, which you would be losing and whether or not you want to be a landlord or whether you'd rather pull that capital out and go do something else with it.

And then what would that be? And can you generate the same kind of income? I like the idea of you being diversified among multiple asset classes, whether that's a portion in real estate, like you've got now, maybe a portion in stocks and bonds, if you have access to a company sponsored retirement plan, or some other, you know, tax deferred environment, maybe some precious metals, you put all that together, and you don't have your eggs in one basket.

But obviously, with real estate, it's not a passive investment, unless you're sitting on a piece of land, waiting for it to be improved, or, you know, infrastructure to be put in or for it to appreciate, but with a home that you're renting out and generating income, there's work that goes along with that. So I think I wouldn't let the tax tail wag the dog, so to speak, I would, you know, decide what you want to be left with in the end, and then figure out the very best way to structure it. And I think you're already on the right track here in terms of the various options you have with these different pieces. And you're probably going to want a real estate attorney to help you to figure out how to kind of, you know, develop this land into multiple parcels so that it could be sold off. Yes, well, I'm getting it surveyed to cut off an extra acre. I just, I didn't know if there was a benefit to, I think I'm looking at potentially making $100,000 on the sale.

Okay. And I didn't know if spreading that up, spreading part of that out over 10 years, as at least own would be beneficial, or just, yeah. Yeah, it's a good question. A lot of it depends on what you're going to do with it as you receive it, you know, if you turn around and, you know, produce income or grow it, you know, that can offset the taxes. Also, if you want to give any portion away, you could give a portion of the property to a donor advised fund before you sell it, and then you wouldn't pay any capital gains on that portion.

And that could be whatever percent of this property you want. So there's just a lot of options there. It feels like you're kind of ripe for some financial planning here, Brian. If you don't have an advisor, I'd probably recommend you go to faithfi.com and connect with a CKA, a certified kingdom advisor, and get them just to look at your overall plan, help you analyze all these different options, the tax consequences, the potential income that you could generate, all of it. So I think that's my best advice, just given the complexity of what you've got here.

Again, faithfi.com and click find a CKA. Thanks for calling today. We appreciate it. Casey and Rick, boy, I'd love to get you to your questions at some point. Perhaps our team can get you all scheduled for the broadcast next week. If you don't mind holding, we'd be happy to do that.

I'd love to chat with you. Thanks for calling today. I'm sorry we didn't get to your questions today. That's going to do it for us today, folks. So thankful that you were along with us today. Faith in Finance Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and FaithFi. I want to say thanks to my team today. Jim Henry providing great research. Thankful for Laura, who was our call screener today.

Amy, our producer, excuse me, Tahira, our producer, and Amy was our engineer today. Thank you for being along as well. Have a great weekend and come back and join us on Monday. We'll see you then. Bye-bye.