Identity in Money vs. Identity in Christ

The late author and pastor Tim Keller wrote, If our identity is in our work rather than Christ, success will go to our heads and failure will go to our hearts.

Hi, I'm Rob West. It's tempting to let work or status or material things define you. Today, we'll talk about how your identity in Christ provides more lasting satisfaction than financial success ever can. 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 identity is a hot issue right now in our culture and there's a lot of pressure to define ourselves according to worldly standards. But as Tim Keller reminds us, our identity isn't found in what we do or what we have, but in Jesus. For Christians, Jesus is enough.

We don't need money or success or any other worldly thing to prove our value or provide security. In fact, we are adopted as children of the King himself with an inheritance better than any 401k can provide. Here's what it says in John 1 12 but to all who did receive him who believed in his name he gave the right to become children of God.

That's good news. Believers in Christ are marked for eternity as part of God's own family, the church. So why do so many believers look so worldly? Well, the sad truth is many believers have forgotten their true identity in Christ because they're trying so hard to be comfortable to succeed and to be accepted. Unfortunately, these are desires that only God can fill.

So trying to achieve them on your own is a recipe for frustration. Here's what happens when your identity is rooted in money instead of Jesus. First, when you base your self-worth on how much you have, you'll look down on those who have less than you and envy those who have more.

The Bible warns against these sins of pride and envy. Second, when you let money define you, you're constantly comparing yourself to others, worrying about your finances and struggling to improve your circumstances. The end result is disillusionment and fear because when you're all about the money, it's never going to be enough. And third, when you let money, success, or influence define you, you put your personal value in what you do. You start believing that your identity is found in your work or your income or your spending choices. Ultimately, money and success do not bring peace, and they won't buy you a ticket to heaven.

As we quoted earlier, when success goes to your head, failure goes to your heart. So what do you do if you're tempted to place your identity in what you do or how much you have? Well, Christians can avoid the trap of using external things, like money, to determine our identity by remembering that our true identity is in Christ.

No need for pride or shame or comparisons. We are sinners saved by grace, resting in Christ alone, who does not change. Galatians 3.28 says, In Christ Jesus, you are all children of God through faith.

For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. You see, it doesn't matter what your job is or whether you just remodeled your kitchen. The size of your bank account or where your kids go to school doesn't determine your value as a person.

Your identity is not about what you do or what you have. You are made right before God because of Jesus in you, your hope of glory. So why do we so often choose to be selfish or fearful or proud? Well, we are still living in a broken and fallen world.

We're works in progress, you might say. Just like little kids, we have to learn things the hard way sometimes. But our loving Father in heaven keeps calling us back to himself. No matter what happens to you financially, your status as a child of God gives you the right to call on him for provision, help and peace. No need for fear or guilt.

You are no longer a slave to worldly values and you're not alone. You see, your brothers and sisters in Christ are here to help you. And the Holy Spirit gives you God's power to face life's ups and downs with hope. So if you believe Jesus is the Son of God and acknowledge his work on the cross saves you from sin, your identity is secure as a child of God, forgiven and free. Your hope is eternal and your inheritance in Christ will last forever. If you want the full story, I would encourage you to read Romans 7 and 8. And by the way, we're on a journey exploring this together at Faithfi.

So jump into the Faithfi community, read some articles and check out the Faithfi app when you visit faithfi.com. All right, your calls are next. The number 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. We'll be right back. 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. Glad to have you with us today on Faith and Finance live here on Moody Radio. I'm Rob West. You know, folks, our hearts desire on this program is that you would see God as your ultimate treasure and that money would become a tool to accomplish God's purposes. A good blessing from the Lord, his creation, money. It's not the money that's the root of all evil.

It's the love of money. So money in and of itself can be used for good or for evil. And so we want to take it and make it a tool to accomplish God's purposes, align it with the principles and passages in scripture and use it to bless others through our generosity and meet our needs and enjoy it.

Perhaps build relationships and create experiences with our family members. Whatever it is, we want to do it as unto the Lord in such a way that it doesn't allow money to compete with God for first position in our lives. We want to help you do that in light of your practical financial decisions and questions today.

So what are you thinking about as you live, give, owe and grow God's money. We want to help you think through it. Give us a call. We've got lines open 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. You can call right now. Coming up a little later in the broadcast, Jerry Boyer will stop by. It's a Friday. Jerry joins us each Friday with his market commentary analysis and an update on the work he's been doing as of late with corporate engagement.

And he's got an update today, actually some pretty exciting developments and some of that work that he'll share with us. All right, let's dive into our phone calls. Again, a few lines open.

You can call right now at 800-525-7000. Let's go to Pembroke Pines, Florida. Hi, Ingrid. Go right ahead. Hi, Rob. It is so good to talk with you today and thank you for all that you do to help us.

I'm telling you, we need it. Thank you so much. I appreciate that.

I have a quick question. I have a 43B, but when I look at it online, it says 43EE. I know that makes a difference. I contribute about $600 per month. When I employ it, they match it. But recently, starting this year, my employees said they're going to give us the IRA.

We have that option. So I wanted to find out 300 that I do, 600, which is 300 every two weeks, to the 43B. I want to know if I can split that and put some of that in the IRA.

I'm in little red words. Yeah, no problem. So are you talking about a Roth 43B versus a traditional 43B? Is that the option that's been presented? Okay. So I currently have a 43B, which is the traditional, and then now they're offering the Roth IRA.

Okay. Well, an IRA is an individual account. And so if it's offered through your employer, it would have to be either a 43B or a 401k. So what they're probably doing is making the Roth 43B available to you. You may want to clarify that, but a company wouldn't be able to offer an IRA. The letter I in IRA stands for individual.

It can't be opened by a company and offered to its employees. But if the question is around Roth versus regular 43B, I like the idea of you splitting it. Let me ask, if you don't mind me asking, what is your age? I'm 59. 59? Yeah.

Okay. So the reason I ask is some University of Arizona researchers actually study this issue around whether or not we should put money in traditional versus Roth or both. And what the traditional kind of thinking on this or the typical thinking is that if you're at the peak of your earning potential, that it's better to put everything in the traditional 403B to get the current tax deduction because in retirement your income is going to be lower because you're not working anymore. And although that's typically true, what that fails to recognize is that tax rates may be higher in retirement. So right now we're at probably the lowest end of the tax rates that we're going to see in the future.

And we know that unless something is done about it, the Trump Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which cut our tax rates to their current level, that expires in 2025. So what these researchers were looking at is perhaps it's not always wise just to assume that as you're approaching retirement, it's best to put everything in the regular 403B. And so as they studied literally hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of scenarios, they came up with a rule of thumb that they said produces near ideal results. And their rule of thumb is that you add the number 20 to your age and you put that percentage into a traditional account and then you put the rest into a Roth. So for you, let's say you said you're 59. Let's use round numbers. So let's say 60. So in your case, you'd take 60. You'd add 20 to it.

That's 80. So you'd put 80 percent into your regular 403B and then 20 percent into the Roth. And what that would do is it give you a portion that would be able to grow tax free.

You could pull it out in retirement. If rates are higher, tax rates are higher, you may want to prioritize pulling out of that first and let the traditional 403B continue to grow. The other benefit of the Roth version is that there's no required minimum. So when you get to 73 or 75, whatever it is at that point for you, you won't have a required minimum coming out of that Roth where you will out of the traditional or the regular 403B.

So there's a lot to that and I don't want to overcomplicate it, but I'm just throwing this out that that rule of thumb was at least what these researchers came back with, which for you would be 80 percent toward the regular 403B and 20 percent toward the Roth. Does that make sense? That makes sense. Yes, it does. Thank you so much. You're welcome, Ingrid. Thanks for calling. Have a great week and thank you. You too.

Bye bye. 800-525-7000 is the number to call. We've got a few lines open today. We'd love to tackle your financial question.

Let's go to St. Louis. Hi, Ed. Go ahead, sir. Hi, how are you?

I'm doing great. Thanks. Okay. Always wanted to say this. So here we go. A longtime listener, first time caller. Oh, great. Well, I'm delighted you made the call.

Yeah. The reason of my call today is that we've been saving for a long time. We're right at the edge of retirement and CDs have been a tool that we've been using. And right now the rates are pretty decent compared to the past. For sure. We've got a substantial amount of money that we're wanting to do something with and online banks seem to be the choice for the best rates. That being said, my wife, especially just, we hate doing stuff online. And I was wondering what your thoughts on that was.

Yeah. Well, you know, I don't have any problem with the online banks and you're right, Ed. That's where you're going to get the most attractive rates without question. And the reason is they're able to pass that additional yield onto you because they don't have the extra expenses that the brick and mortar banks have. So as long as there's FDIC insurance, I mean, you're probably already doing quite a bit online anyway. You're probably buying things through online retailers. You may be logging into your financial accounts.

I mean, I don't think this is any different. It's still a bank. There's still the full faith and credit of the United States government backing it through FDIC.

It's just that you can't walk in the door and look somebody in the eye. But for me, the trade-off is worth it to get those better rates. So I'd be completely comfortable with it as long as you're under $250,000 per bank and you have the FDIC insurance.

You can find the best rates at bankrate.com. Ed, thanks for your call. We'll be right back. Great to have you with us today on Faith & Finance Live here on Moody Radio. I'm Rob West. We've got a few lines open today for your calls and questions. 800-525-7000. That's 800-525-7000.

Let's go back to the phones to Nevada. Hi, Jason. Go ahead.

Yeah, Rob. I just wanted to tell you thank you for your work. I've been blessed by it. Well, thank you. I appreciate that.

And yeah, my question, you were definitely the man to talk to. You're a biblical man, obviously, and a financial man, so that's two with one stone there for me. My question mainly is, yeah, about Matthew 25, verse 16. Well, he's talking about the talons, the ten, the five, and the one.

Well, the one I've always kind of struggled with is the five talons. And he said, that depends on your Bible, but mine was talking about, and he went and traded. And it always made me wonder, so did they have a stock market? Did he buy a camel cheap, clean it up, and turn around and resell it, like some people do with cars now? Yeah, I just always wondered how they did that to make money in God's eyes where they weren't messing people over.

Yes, yes. Well, I think the key here is, the whole purpose of a parable is obviously to teach a spiritual truth, but do it in a way that allows us to relate to the instructor. In this case, it happens to be Jesus. And so this is, I think, a lesson on being an appropriate or responsible manager of what we have been entrusted. And so as believers, we're entrusted with, among other things, financial resources, but also we're entrusted with relationships and God's word. And so I think, you know, first of all, as a steward or a manager, we have to understand the heart of the master, because we can only be an effective manager of the master if we understand the master's heart. And I think that's what Jesus was getting at here. Obviously, he describes a man who goes on a journey and entrusts his servants with, in this case, wealth and possessions in his absence. I think one of the things to take away is that we will each receive differing amounts, and that's up to God, up to the master as to what we will receive. But our goal, our charge, if you will, is to be found faithful with whatever measure has been entrusted to us. Obviously, this would have been an agrarian society, so there would have been trading, there would have been, you know, productivity and also, you know, farming and so forth.

So, you know, that would be the kind of thing that would be happening here. In this case, you know, it's a means of putting it to work in whatever way they did in that economy. But the big point was, obviously, we don't want to be negligent, we don't want to be fearful with regard to how we use what has been entrusted to us. We're to be faithful with intentionality. You know, we've been entrusted with spreading the gospel, with loving others, with caring for his church, being an example to the world, caring for the poor, the prisoner and the sick, being wise managers of whatever God has entrusted to us, and that certainly includes our financial resources, because we know that one day he will return and we look forward with anticipation to that day, and he will ask for an account of how we have handled what he has entrusted to us. And we want to be able to say that with what he's given us, big and small, that, you know, we have used that faithfully and as unto the Lord. And, you know, I think when we apply this to our lives, it should cause us to want to be intentional, to take whatever God has given us and use it for his glory with the anticipation of him, the master, returning someday and us giving an account. Does that make sense?

Yeah, it does. It's just that the biggest thing was, you know, the traded or trading that always kind of stumped me is like, well, how did he do it? But apparently, if it was very important at all, he would have mentioned, oh, by the way, it was, you know, hay for barley or whatever it was.

But, you know, it wasn't important enough for him to mention it, or the Bible would be an encyclopedia set. Yeah, well, the word trade there actually means to toil or to work the talents. So that is, you know, to trade or toil as to what was entrusted.

So the guy that the person that received the five talents traded or worked and made five more. So his working of the measure of the faith that was given to him was completed by his good work. So that that word trade there in the Bible actually relates to toil or work. I believe the work thing is very important, said several places in the Bible, and he talks about, you know, like the one talent he buried that that guy did, and it was because he was lazy, and it's like, oh, you lazy and like that, you know. So he definitely does talk about work as being very important, and that's, I guess that would be part of it.

That's exactly right. You know, that's clear in Scripture, you know, that we're not to be slothful, we're not to be lazy. God created us to be workers before the fall, and so that's part of God's design. God was a worker. We saw him working in the creation account clearly, and we were created in his image. So we're to work as unto him, not finding our identity in our work, finding our identity in the Lord, but clearly working and playing to an audience of one, of God himself, not man.

And, you know, that's why I think we find so much joy in our work, because our calling, until Jesus calls us home, doesn't have an expiration, and so we're to take what God has given us and to toil or to work what has been entrusted to us, whatever it is, however much, however little, and the goal is faithfulness to opportunity. But it's a great question, Jason. I appreciate you raising it, and thanks for your kind remarks about the program, my friend.

May the Lord bless you. Folks, we've got a lot of great questions coming up today. Also, Jerry Boyer stopping by just around the corner. We'll be headed to talk to DJ in Minnesota in just a moment.

Iris in Florida, Judy in Missouri, plus perhaps your questions. We've got one line open, 800-525-7000. Now, before we head to this break, let me just remind you it's a great opportunity right here at the start of the year, the first week of the year, for you to download the Faithfi app, get your budget set up, get on track with your spending plan this year, create a system to control the flow of money in and out, and if you're married, stay on the same page with your spouse so you can see what's in each of those budget categories and make course corrections along the way as you see fit. You'll find it in your app store when you search for Faithfi, or you can go to our website, faithfi.com. Just click app and read all about it.

You'll find the links there. All right, a lot more to come. We still have more than half the program remaining. We'll be right back after this. Stay with us. Thanks for tuning in to Faith in Finance Live today. Let's go right back to the phones.

Minnesota is where we're headed next. Hi, DJ. How can I help? Hi there, Rob. Thank you so much for taking my call. Of course. Thanks for all your expertise on such a wide variety of subjects. I'm a relatively new listener, so I've learned so much in the past maybe three, four months, so thank you again. Well, thank you for saying that. I'm glad to hear.

Yeah, my question is this. I've been divorced for 10 years, since 2014, and in the divorce, it was decreed that we both kept interest in the house. And then a short time afterwards, I wanted to get out of that, allow my ex-husband to have complete ownership in the house. And so I filed a quick claim deed with the county that we lived in, and I've come to find out that that does not relieve me from the obligations on the mortgage. The county and everybody else accepts that with regards to what they are looking for, but unfortunately, not the mortgage. And he is unable to refinance, unable to afford a refi at this time of the house. And I'm just wondering if there's any other options for me to be able to get my name off that mortgage.

It's been 10 years, and I'm nearly debt-free, so I'm just super excited about that, and having that would be just a real great thing. Yeah, no, I certainly understand that. Your lender is not legally required to take any action as a result of the divorce agreement, so that means they can hold you liable along with your ex-spouse, as long as both names are on the mortgage. So think about it from their standpoint. They are looking for recourse in the event that the mortgage is not paid based on the schedule, the amortization schedule. And so even though you've transferred legal ownership of the home to him, you signed as a part of this mortgage to be personally responsible for the mortgage. Now, if they foreclose on it, they'll sell it, but if they don't recoup enough money in the sale, let's say they sell it at auction, then they want as many people as possible that they can come after to try to be made whole. So they just have no incentive to release you from that mortgage, and they're not required to do so.

So unfortunately, and I'm not an attorney, so always a good idea to talk to an attorney, but unfortunately, there really is no way for you to get out from under this unless your ex can qualify for a mortgage and take out the mortgage in his own name, or the property is sold and the mortgage is satisfied. Yeah, I was afraid of that. Well, I was looking for any other options or anything like that. So unfortunately, I mean, I completely understand their point of view and why that is the case. But I had heard that there's perhaps some things that we could do as far as proving that I haven't paid on it for a number of years and the obligations and things like that. But I guess it all boils down to the to the real nitty gritty of the legalities of it.

So yeah, unfortunately, that's right. You know, I think the other approach would just be to approach the lender and ask for a release of the debt and see if they would be willing to do that. You know, generally, you will not get them to do that just because they have no requirement and incentive to do it. But it's not, you know, beyond asking and see if they would, without refinancing it, see if they would be willing to release from the debt because that, of course, doesn't happen automatically. So you may want to, you know, pursue that with the lender and see if, you know, if they would be willing to cooperate with that.

But if they won't, then obviously you're just relying on your husband to, ex-husband to continue to pay on it and ultimately to either refinance it or to sell it. So I wish I had better news for you, DJ, but I appreciate your call today. Let's head to Florida Sebring. Hi, Iris, go ahead. Yes.

Thank you so much for your job that you do. My husband and I, we have $90,000 and we don't know how to invest. We have no clue how to do investment.

I was thinking in buying a property, but right now, the way that the market is, it's almost impossible to find an affordable house. So we want to know what would be the best investment and secure one. Yes. Yeah.

It's a, it's a good question. And, you know, when we're talking about investing to seek a return, there's obviously a trade-off between risk and return or reward. And the more return or reward you're looking for, the more risk you have to take to achieve that. And so we look at it kind of on a spectrum and we say, okay, the most conservative, there's nothing that's risk-free, but the least amount of risk would be, you know, something like a bank product where you've got a bank CD or you've got a savings account where the U.S. government is backing or guaranteeing the money.

And that's where the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation comes in. And then we begin to move, you know, across that risk spectrum. And, you know, at that point, we might get into U.S. treasuries where we're buying U.S. government bonds, bills, bonds, and notes.

And again, we have the backing of the U.S. government. So although it's not risk-free, it's as close to it as you're going to get. And then you can continue to move down that spectrum and you might get into corporate bonds, high quality AAA corporate bonds, major multinational companies, some of the biggest in the world that are issuing bonds that are very safe and they pay a little bit better interest rate than you might get in the government bonds. And then, you know, you continue on down the line into, you know, stocks where you get a partial ownership in a company. But, you know, the performance of that stock is subject to the performance of the company and what will it somebody is willing to buy that share of that company from for you. And there's all kinds of other asset classes, gold, like the precious metals, real estate.

You mentioned that. There's commodities, oil and gas. So, you know, I think the key is to first of all say, okay, what is our time horizon for the money? Is it money we need, you know, immediately liquid right now? So I would call that your emergency savings. Is it money we need in less than three years?

And I would still put that in the most conservative category. Or is it money that, you know, we don't need for 10 years or more? So even once you reach retirement, you know, if the Lord tarries and you're in good health, you know, at 65, you probably need this money to last for three decades. So you still have a long time horizon, even though you're, you're retired at that point. And I think the key is to kind of match up the time horizon and the appropriate risk level with the investment strategy. With $90,000, that's a lot of money. I'd probably carve out your emergency savings, put that in a savings account so it's liquid and safe.

And then if you wanted to invest the rest because you had the time to do it, well, that's where I would, I would seek the help of a financial advisor or an investment advisor. Does that make sense? Yes.

Yeah. And so what I would probably do, Iris, is reach out to a certified kingdom advisor there in Sebring. And you can do that on our website at faithfi.com. That's faithfi.com. Right there at the top of the page, it says, find a CKA. And I would, I would reach out to maybe two or three certified kingdom advisors, interview them, you and your husband, find the one that's the best fit, ask a lot of questions.

They should ask you a lot of questions so you can get to know each other, find out how they're compensated, explain what you're trying to accomplish, and see if it might make sense for you to hire somebody that for that portion where you want to go beyond savings and actually invest it, you'd have an advisor that's making those decisions for you with your goals and objectives in mind. Again, that's faithfi.com. Thanks for your call. We'll be right back. Well, it's great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live here on Moody Radio. In our final segment of the broadcast today, we will take hopefully one or two more phone calls. But first, Jerry Boyer stops by in this segment each Friday to share with us his analysis of the markets and the economy, also to bring an update on his work in corporate engagement.

And that's where we're going to focus our attention today. Jerry, good afternoon and happy new year, my friend. Happy new year to you.

Good afternoon. Well, tell us what you've been up to. It sounds like you've had some exciting developments as of late, huh?

Yeah, quite a lot. But I think most recently is just this week in working with a shareholder who owns significant shares in Apple, we were able to help that shareholder bring a proposal to the ballot. So just to kind of recap, because people don't know this world, although it's really important. I mean, we all know that if you're a citizen, you can vote. We all know if you're a citizen, you can go to a town hall meeting and speak up. We all know that if certain state citizens can put referendums on the ballot to set the agenda, what a lot of people don't know is when you're an investor in a company, you have those same rights. And so there was a shareholder who said, hey, we own Apple stock and we want to be an influence on this company because we think that they've drifted. Particularly, Apple took down a Bible app at the demand of the Chinese government. They also took down a Quran app.

Previously, they had taken down an app from some conservative Christians called the Manhattan Declaration. And so there was a concern that Apple maybe wasn't being fair in deciding which things the platform or which things not the platform. So we helped this shareholder put a proposal, put it forward.

He did the paperwork to get it right. And Apple fought. Companies typically fight. They want to control their annual meetings. You know, CEOs like to control things, so they don't want anything coming up at the annual meeting that might be seen as criticizing them. And this is implicitly criticizing them.

So they tried to fight it. And the way companies do that is they write a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which regulates this stuff. And they say, basically paraphrasing, well, obviously this doesn't belong in front of the shareholders. This is just ordinary business or we're doing this already.

Who needs this? Why shareholders don't need to see this stuff? And we're going to leave it off the ballot. And this week, the SEC came forward and said, no, we don't agree.

We think that this does belong on the ballot. And so that's big. I mean, that's that's the world's largest company by market cap. It's a two trillion dollar company.

It has tremendous cultural influence. In this particular case, a shareholder was willing to step forward. This was a Christian ministry in this case that owns the shares and they're making their voice heard.

So now they have a right not only to have that proposal on the ballot and be voted up or down. The CEO has to read it. The board of directors has to read it to come to a position. It goes before the other shareholders and they get to make a speech at the annual meeting, uncensored and unfiltered on behalf of religious freedom and viewpoint diversity.

Wow, that's incredible. So this shareholder will actually be physically at the meeting or virtually, but but given an opportunity to explain the basis behind why they've proposed this? Yes, probably virtually ever since COVID. They've all moved to virtual, except there's only one major company last year that didn't have virtual shareholder meeting, and that was Target, which I think is kind of interesting. I think Target maybe didn't want to hear from its shareholders. So they had an annual meeting. They were hiding in the corner of Austin, Texas somewhere maybe, huh?

Exactly. It was Austin. They call that a foxhole meeting. This is like nowhere near middle America, nowhere near their headquarters.

We're just go off to Austin, Texas. For some reason, Austin felt safe to them and not even log, even companies that had in-person annual meetings also had login. I don't know any other big company that had no login, no streaming, and one of these foxhole meetings. So I mean, Target, you can understand why they don't want to face their shareholders, because shareholders have some really legitimate concerns. But in this case, Apple's very likely to be an online meeting, we'll see.

So that would be an online presentation. You know, 2024 is an election year, right? We all know that. We all know what election we're all going to be talking about. But I happen to believe that these corporate elections are really as important or maybe more important than our political elections. A company like Apple or Microsoft or Facebook or Disney, that really steers our culture in the long run, I think more so than any particular candidate or any particular party, because it makes culture. The cultural changes that we see showing up in our politics are created partly by these giant corporations, especially media corporations. So, you know, I really think these shareholder meetings are just as important as the political meeting of shareholder elections are just as important as the political elections, arguably over the long run, more so.

Yeah. Wow, Jerry, that's really exciting. Well, certainly we'll keep an eye on that. And I'll tell you, this work that you're doing to make Christians voices heard in the boardroom and at the shareholder meetings is really critical. We've abdicated our role and responsibility in that, I think, as Christians, as the the capital C church for a long time. And I'll tell you, you on behalf of these Christian shareholders across the country are doing some incredible work, my friend. Give us quickly. I want to mention Alliance Defending Freedom, the legal work on this. I mean, they really won in front of the SEC, so I don't want to let it pass without giving them credit for their contribution to this.

Very good. Jerry, the most recent economic data out is around jobs. And obviously everyone was celebrating the fact that they beat consensus. I was reading earlier today, though, that if you strip out government because it's not the private sector and education and health care services, because, you know, that usually doesn't even decline in recession years and a few of these other categories to get to really that core measure of payrolls. It was only up something like three thousand month over month. And so, you know, that would be more consistent with us heading toward a recession. Would you agree with that? Yes, or at least one of those growth recessions, which isn't technically a negative sign, but it really doesn't feel all that different than a negative sign.

I mean, we're kind of bracing for snow here this weekend in Pittsburgh. I've been in one degree temperature and I've been in negative one degree temperature. I don't feel that different. One percent or half a percent growth really doesn't feel all that different from negative half a percent growth. So whether we get an official recession or not, I really think the economy is slowing down. I think it really slowed down. This is this is a December report. Remember, it's always hard to keep track of this. We read the headline in January for a month that we're not in anymore.

Right. In a couple of weeks, we're going to get the headlines for the fourth quarter of last year and we're going to find out whether the economy was slowing down at the end of last year. I'm virtually certain that it will show that we were slowing down, but we won't officially know until it's three weeks in the rearview mirror. So, you know, so but I think I'm pretty confident, you know, that the economy is slowing down. I think one of the reasons that inflation has, quote, slowed down a little bit is when you enter a recession or something close to a recession, people are afraid to purchase. So they don't purchase.

They're not buying, especially new homes. So it looks like inflation is beaten. But what it really is, is people are just holding back for the moment because they're scared. So that's not really beating inflation because eventually they're not scared anymore. And then they spend the money and then the prices go back up. So we're in that. We're in this position now where I think the economy is slowing. Inflation is suppressed in the short run, but not, you know, really for the long run.

So I think in this election year, to the degree that the economy is factoring in, it won't be a good story for the incumbent. Yep. Makes a lot of sense, Jerry. All right, my friend, enjoy your weekend and we'll talk to you next week. And you too. God bless. All right.

God bless you. That's Jerry Boyer, our resident economist. He joins us each Friday with his market commentary. All right. Let's head back to the phones here as we round out the broadcast to Missouri. Hi, Judy. Go ahead. Hi.

Thanks for taking my call. I've been listening and learning quite a bit. Well, I've been listening to you, especially the 65 year old gal who doesn't know much about investing.

That's me. And I received or I will be receiving life insurance from my husband's passing. I feel that I'm in good shape financially. I have a nice home paid for, my car is paid for. I have no debt and I can live quite well on my income right now from social security and his social security. I was called by a gold salesman in a gold company about investing in gold coins.

And I would like to know, would you advise that or not? You know, I like gold, but I wouldn't overweight there. So out of your total portfolio, your total investable assets, I generally recommend five, certainly no more than 10% in gold. Now, often we will do maybe 5% in physical gold. So that would include the gold coins.

But I'd be careful there, not just buying, you know, from somebody who called you over the phone. I'd do your homework, know the spot price of gold, make sure you understand what premium you're paying and use somebody who's reputable and trustworthy. But I wouldn't go over 5% for me in the physical gold. And if you want to do another 5%, you can add it through the exchange traded funds where it tracks just the price of gold, but you don't actually have to take physical possession. Now, if you wanted to go a full 10% physical gold, you could, but you got to secure it and store it and all of that.

And you just, again, need to make sure you're working with somebody who's reputable. But I just wouldn't overweight there. Gold doesn't perform as well. It doesn't generate an income. It's more volatile than a properly diversified stock and bond portfolio. Well, that's interesting because they make it sound like you can't lose, you know, and make it sound both safe.

Yeah. And I mean, it's a store of value and it's a fear trade. And, you know, it is if everything else is declining, it's, you know, a way to have an uncorrelated asset.

And that's a good thing. But, you know, we're just now getting back to where we were in, you know, three years ago on the price of gold. And you would have thought with inflation and, you know, all the things we're dealing with, that gold would be through the roof and it has done well as of late. But, you know, over the last few years, it really hasn't, there's not a whole lot of performance there and it doesn't generate an income. So you can own a stock or piece of real estate and you get income while you're holding it while the price of it is increasing. Gold doesn't do that. So that's why I think it's a good place, good to have it in your portfolio.

I just wouldn't go more than 10%. Hey, Judy, all the best to you. Stay on the line. I want to send you a gift.

It's a great book called Wise Women Managing Money by a wonderful lady that was a widow and wrote this book for ladies just like you. I think it'll be an encouragement to you. God bless you.

Faith in Finance Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and FaithFi. Thank you to Lisa, Amy, Dan, and Jim. See you tomorrow. Bye-bye.