God lovingly entrusts us with money, possessions, and resources. As followers of Christ we are called to surrender all our gifts to the Lordship of Christ. Because God is an other-oriented God who lovingly pours out blessings, and we are made in His image, then we too should be people who use our resources to bless others. 
The average American lives paycheck-to-paycheck, only giving about 2.8% of their income to charities. The trend over the past few years has been to spend more than we make. More and more Americans borrow to be able to live the life they want. This has lead to finances becoming the major stressor in American life. Money, in a sense, is an extension of you, because it was an investment of the time and resources you took to earn it. How you spend your money tells you what you value most, because it is the place you are willing to put that investment of time and effort. The average American, who is three times as wealthy as the global average, uses 97.2% of their wealth on themselves.
Every good and perfect gift is from God. It all belongs to Him. Yes, we work to earn money, and should do that, but God gives us life, and the ability to work. Therefore God entrusts us with our resources. In Matthew 6:24-27, 31-33 Jesus tells us that money tends to come into competition with God. Jesus shows us what it looks like to serve God rather than money. It looks like not chasing after things, worrying about getting enough, and not believing you are the owner of your resources. Jesus is saying, “you know better than to that!” You know that this life is not your own, and that this life is not the only one. You know that your Father in Heaven is always with you and showering blessing down on you!
The punch line of what Jesus is saying is make God your highest priority and everything else will be given to you. In Hebrew the word righteousness means right relatedness. Righteousness is how God would have our relationships and life ordered. The promise of Jesus is that as you live under His reign than you can rest and relax! So the question is, are we rightly related to our money? Does the way that we spend our money shows that we are putting first the Kingdom of God? Image that today Jesus is at your doorstep and asks to do a heavenly audit. What does he say about your finances? Does He say that the kingdom is obviously your top priority?
This is not at all about shame, but rather about moving towards a more kingdom view of money. Remember that God gave Himself away and loves to give away His blessings. Because we are to be imitators of God we should strive to be like Him. Even our finances should reflect this.
One caveat, to put the Kingdom first is not to forget about your own needs or to feel guilty for any extra thing you have that others don’t have. If you are in America, it just so happens that you are in a part of the world where more blessings got through. We can’t fix that, but what we can do is never take anything for granted and submit everything to the Lord. The Lord will guide and direct you. Once you have submitted your finance to the Lord, listen to Him, obey Him, and then let it be. Remember to enjoy the blessings God gives you! In 1 Timothy 6:17-19 Paul doesn’t shame the rich for having money, rather he encourages them to put their hope in God and to not store it up for themselves, but to pour it out for people. Giving away is the only way you will be able to hold onto the blessing of money and store up a reward in eternity. Both the poor and rich have the same responsibility to give all to Christ.
Greg offered four steps to moving finances in the direction of the Kingdom.
1. Ask the Spirit to deepen your commitment to the Kingdom. (We need the Spirit’s help in this, and not just trying to will ourselves to).
2. Get informed and get honest.
3. Let Jesus do an audit.
4. Develop a plan.
The important thing is not where you are, but where you take steps to be. It is important to be intentional about this, and not give up. Also, get support behind you. If you are married involve your spouse and do an audit with Jesus. Involve the people in your life who are walking with Christ. Finally be open to the Spirit breaking in to do something radical. He may call you to step out of the boat, but remember that giving is a great blessing that echoes in eternity.
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Hi there,
Thanks for this podcast… I feel challenged!
One follow up message I would love to hear is also a kingdom perspective on what we do spend and the impact it has on the climate and the poor of this world. Our consumer world is such a complex web of injustice that most of the time negatively impacts the poor and the planet. Everything from our banking, insurances, pensions, the clothes we buy made on the back of exploitative labour, so we can buy it cheap, the food that we eat, the coffee and wine that we drink that was picked and packaged by the poor and them flown half way around the world and badly effecting the climate and the state of the planet, the conflict minerals in our gadgets etc etc etc. For instance, I don’t believe that the products that we buy are a blessing from God if they were made in a using exploitative labour which, unless labeled “fair trade”, or “ethically sourced” is usually the case, or if they add to the destruction of the planet. I’d like to hear more Christians challenged to shift their money to an ethical bank like tridos that doesn’t invest in fossel fuels, wepons/ arms etc and challenged to shop locally (rather than big fast food chains) choose organic, less meat and other options that are good for the dire state the planet is in…. I feel that as Christians we have to wake up to how knee deep we are in the destruction that our unrestricted consumer lifestyles have had on the planet and the poor. Our affluence can be very violent and have a direct and destructive effect on the planet and the poor (the popes encyclical on climate change is a great challenge to the Christian world but I feel we need to hear more…) I’d love to hear you on this Greg in reference to kingdom finances and also a life of non violence in the image of Christ… Anyway, sorry for the rant and thanks for all the amazing teaching week after week. Esther xx
“Bless purse, bless and don’t curse”
Love Greg’s shirt….
It’s interesting though that Pink Floyd did so well financially after releasing ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ but then, through some misguided investments of their royalties into ‘venture capital’ via NWG – North Warburg Group, they nearly filed for bankruptcy and hit the skids. But things turned around for them Big Time with the release of
‘The Wall’ and the rest is history. When Rick Wright died a few years back, he left over 24 million to his children.
“Money it’s a Gas……”