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Redeemed & Qualified
Missy Smith

MONDAY BIBLE STUDY
TEACHING NOTES
More Notes Click Here

Next week we will talk about Choosing Life:  Physically. Refer back to the notes section for previous segments about Choosing Life Spiritually and Emotionally.

1 Corinthians 4:1
1 ¶ Let a man so account (take an inventory) of us, as of the ministers (subordinates) of Christ, and stewards (overseers, managers) of the mysteries of God.
2 Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful (trustworthy).
3 But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged (scrutinized) of you, or of man's judgment (day): yea, I judge not mine own self.
4 For I know nothing by myself; yet am I not hereby justified: but he that judgeth me is the Lord.
5 Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.

If you were going to hire a manager or overseer of your personal and business affairs, what qualities and characteristics of the manager would you require?  How about not careless, frivoulous or wasteful, not lazy or slothful, a hard worker, diligent, detail oriented, understand the way money works, proven credentials, pay off financial obligations in a timely manner, disciplined, pleasant manners under unexpected, unplanned emergency situations, a planner, have follow through, repair instead of replace equipment as most economically prudent, maintain house, vehicles, equpiment properly. Inventory supplies, balance checkbook, live within means, budget, save money for household, thrifty, investor, saavy...etc...

In other words, a FAITHFUL STEWARD, accountable to God.
Money and the things of money are discussed more as a whole in the Bible than FAITH is.The LOVE of money is the root of all evil. So God is concerned with the matters of the heart. Money is not evil. The love of money is the ROOT of ALL evil. because it penetrates our hearts, it affects our emotions, will and actions and motivations.

Where your treasure is, there your heart is also. Out of the heart proceed the issues of life.

God wishes above all things that we may prosper and be in health even as our SOUL PROSPERS. He said He would provide all our need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Discontent can breed greed and covetousness and can lead us down the road to follow after wealth and riches rather than the Lord. Contentment can be learned. Paul said he learned how to be content with lack and abundance. Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all you need will be added unto you. 

God is more concerned with your HEART than your money and stuff. He desires we become HILARIOUS, CHEERFUL GIVERS, not obligated debtors. I GET to give tithes and offerings. I don't HAVE to.

the key to abundance is not so much how much money you make, but how much money you keep so you have more to fund the Kingdom of God.

Sometimes a second and third job is necessary to make ends meet. However, if you cut back on your expenses, you may not need that extra job. Its not what you have that counts, its what you do with what you have that makes the biggest difference.  It is a good idea to give God 10% straight off the top and then save 5-15% AFTER THAN AND LEARN HOW TO LIVE ON WHAT REMAINS. iT IS ALSO A GOOD IDEA TO GET OUT OF DEBT AND HAVE AN EMERGENCY FUND EQUAL TO 6 MONTHS OF YOUR WAGES. if you are married, pray together as a couple to decide if you will save first or pay off debts first or a combination of the two simultaneously. Once you DECIDe, stick to it faithfully and hold each other accountible.  There are financial freedom courses like Crown Financial, Debt Free and Prosperous Living and Dave Ramsey's Freedom University. There are Christian budget guidebooks. If you have to use the envelope system, use it. If you have to cut up your ATM or debit card to keep your checkbook straight then do it.But  once the oney is gone from your entertainment envelope, then tell your flesh NO. To help determine where all your money is going, keep track of every penny for 2 months. We did that and found out we nickeled and dimed ourselves out of our rent money at 7-11. We stopped buying that $1 coke, that $2 other thing and we could pay our rent again.

I am going to share some practical ideas that have helped my husband and I go from homelessness to homeownership, from wasteful spenders to better stewards. I am no financial mogul and do not pretend to be an investor, I have no idea about stocks, other than my mom invested 10% of her income for 40 years and is now doing just fine.You do not have to do what I did, but I promise you if you make some changes, you can get out of debt and stay out of debt if you want to.

Our first credit card was a learning experience for us. We owed money to the bank for our mobile home, and money for our land and money to our parents for the car. We never saw an amortization table. But we saw the minimum payment was applied to our credit card balance, and more interest was added  to the balance and we owed MORE the next month than we did the first month. This happened a few more times until we took a lesson and figured out that we would have to pay more than the minimum to make a difference in the principal amount owed. We were only making interest payments. Because the interest compounded, that is, interest was added onto the interest of the principal amount plus onto what was originally owed. We were only making interest payments. We paid more than the minimum from then on and got rid of the debt much quicker.

We took that lesson and applied it to our land payments and our trailer payments. We decided to pay at least $25-$50 extra each month on each of these loans. Becasue we did this, we ended up having $14,000 in equity in the place when we sold it and we bought a bigger house with that. We decided to pay off the house by the year 2000, which goal we accomplished (it took 6 years).

We did not buy brand new cars or the latest and greatest gadgets or phones. We did without those luxuries. (People think these days that all this technology are needs, but they really are not. Recently, we decided that organic whole foods are more important to us than entertainment. So we did not hook up cable, home phone or internet service at our new place.) I went thrift store shopping and yard saling with a list and a tight budget. If I did not find it at the price I could pay, I waited until I did. Sometimes I waited for 6 months or a year! One good find was a kitchen table we used for 20 years. I got it at a yard sale for $11! We did not have Starbucks then but even if we did, I would have made the coffee at home to save money.

Early on, my husband decided that he could work the same hours for someone else at $10 an hour or he could work for himself and get paid all the profit, so we paid extra principal on our new house with the money he got on the regular  work week jobs and we lived off of the side weekend job profits. Not everyone is cut out for business ownership, but it worked well for us. We constantly confessed that God would help us get out of debt by the year 2000 even though we had NO IDEA HOW it would happen. (We owed $78,000!) We got more and more excited to see our mortgage balance decrease every month, instead of increase like our credit card balance had!

Some financial planners suggest taking your smallest debts and paying them off first. Then roll the payment you were used to paying on the first one onto the second one (in addition paying the second debt's payments every month). Then when the second debt is paid off, to apply the first and second payments together with the third one until that one is paid, continuing the process until all debts are paid, continuing the 'snowball effect" onto each one.

A few months ago, Jan taught us how to stretch our food dollars. There are good books out there about tight food budgets and menus. Food is a huge expense.

When our kids were little, we had cable and could not afford life insurance. So we cancelled the cable and bought life insurance to protect ourselves from the unthinkable. Every family has to determine what is important and where their priorities lie. If eating healthy organic food is important to you so your kids grow up healthy, strong and able to learn, then cut the cable, cut the internet, cut the movies out,  bar night, Bingo night, clothes or whatever you can to be ABLE to afford good nutritious foods.

A cell phone, internet connection and cable are NOT necessities. We just think they are. If you are on a very limited, tight budget, you can find areas to cut back. Food, clothing and utilities are several areas you can believe God to help you cut back. FOr example, we do  not use the AC every day. When the temps go over 90 degrees F we turn it on. Otherwise, the windows are open and fans are running. Sometimes we get hot, but sweating is good for the skin! Our electric bill was only $35 last month in 1300 sf of living space. We save 30% on our electric consumption by unplugging all appliances after we are done using them and turning off lights when we leave the room. Our TVS are on power strips so we can easily cut the power to them when we are not watching TV.

There are nifty calculators on the internet from many web sites. i have not used the products or services on the web sites I am going to show you. the calculators there are the cool thing I want to show you. The calculators are useful to show you how interest works for and against you.

Proverbs 22:7
The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant (slave) to the lender.
 

You want to know what the word lender means in Hebrew? It means to be closely joined together. I don't know about you, but I want to be closely joined together with my husband! With my family, with my friends, with my church, with God's Girls NOT a lender!
 

Most Americans live by the adage: I owe, I owe, so off to work I go!

CHOOSE LIFE:

Deuteronomy 30:19 b t...
Therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:

The word chose means to elect, to decide for. The word life is chay in Hebrew and it means living, alive, flowing & fresh (of water), lively, active (of man), and reviving (of springtime). We elect, we decide for financial life or death every time we spend money (or save money). With your money you elect to honor God, or dishonor Him. You decide to put Him first or last, you elect to be a faithful steward or an unfaithful one. Say, I choose life. Say, I choose to become a faithful steward.

Proverbs 1:17-19
17 Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird.
18 And they lay wait for their own blood; they lurk privily for their own lives.
19 So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain; which taketh away the life of the owners thereof.
 

NLT: These people set an ambush for themselves, they are trying to get themselves killed.
NIV: These men lie in wait for their own blood; they waylay themselves.

this sounds a lot like SELF-SABATOAGE to me!
 

Vs 19 NLT: Such is the fate of all who are greedy for money; it robs them of their (soul) life (thoughts, will and emotions)'

If  a bird sees a trap being laid out for it, it will run for its life. Not so with those who are greedy for money. They set up theire own trap and it takes away their life.

We choose life.
Lets chose to put God first in our finances. My home Bible study leader encouraged my husband and I to trust God in our finances and prove His word in this area. We made $100 bucks a week. $10 was a lot of money to us since we felt like we needed $300! We thought giving away 10% of our already meager pay was too costly AT FIRST. but then, we saw God bless our $90. I can tell you and PROMISE you that if you will put your trust in God and look only to Him as you tithe, He will be FAITHFUL and provide for you. When we first gave our tithe, it did not come back to us immediately, like it has many times since then (we would give $40 and then the next day or two get it right back). I noticed our money went further. i found sales. we looked only to God and He did not disappoint. he provided during a very lean time when we had no food or money. Terry was working but his builder stiffed him and did not pay him. But God is faithful. He provided exceedingly abundantly above all we could ask or think! HE did it!  A stranger, a friend of a friend mailed us a check for $200. ANother family invited us over for dinner when we had NO food in the cupboards, not even a bag of rice. They gave us the leftovers so we could eat the next day. But we did not tell anyone our need because we wanted to look only to God like George Mueller did (the man who raised hundereds of orphans in the 1800s who only looked to God).

FOR THE NIFTY DEBT PAYMENT CALCULATOR AND OTHER WEB TOOLS: CLICK BELOW:

http://www.moneychimp.com/features/

http://www.moneychimp.com/features/debt_payment_calculator.htm

 This image is from Atlantic Financial.com it is called The Compound Interest Advantage and shows how a monthly savings of $125 compounds over time monthly, making money work for you. Its the way banks and creditors make their money. It is how you can do it too.
See image here:

http://www.atlanticfinancial.com/images-wealth-management-global-economy/compound-interest-chart.gif

The chart  on the below page assumes you put in $10,000 and leave it, not adding anything else and shows how the original amount over 40 years can turn into over $14 million dollars at 20 % interest.

http://www.compoundingreturns.com/2011/03/power-of-compound-interest.html

Lets choose life financially so we can keep more of our money in funding the kingdom of God, so those who don't know Jesus can hear about him! Lets join ourselves closely to the Kingdom of God not the credit card companies and revolving store credit accounts.

Amen.

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