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This week I have been focused on helping you lay the foundation for a great year.  We talked yesterday about shifting atmospheres, today I want to talk to you about your financial focuses for this year.

And I am going to begin with what some struggle most with, but is essential in God’s plan of prosperity, giving.

Rather than desiring to heap riches upon ourselves, the biblical model is one of giving, not getting. “Remember this: Whoever gives  sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever gives generously will also reap generously. 

We tend to not understand how giving will put us in a position to have more, it makes no mathematical sense.  And it never will; it's a God thing which requires us to put our faith in God, to trust that  His word is true. I encourage each of you to open up a faith account that builds based on your giving, the more you invest in your faith account monitored by the Kingdom of God, the more dividends become available to you.

(2 Corinthians 9:6-7) Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver”. In other words, you are allowed to ease into the practice of giving.  Did the you know that giving is the only thing God tells us to test him about?  In  Malachi 3:10 test Me now in this,” says the Lord of hosts, “if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out blessings that you will not have room to receive.

Proverbs 6: provides wisdom concerning laziness and the financial ruin that is inevitably attached to such behavior. We are told to consider the industrious ant who works to store up food for itself. The passage also warns against sleeping when we should be working at something profitable.  In other words, stop dreaming when you should be working. Put your ideas to work the bible tells us  a  “sluggard” person is a lazy, slothful person who would rather rest than work and that this person’s end is assured—poverty.

At the other end of the spectrum is the one who is obsessed with gaining money is not pleasing in the sight of God. Such a one, according to Ecclesiastes 5:10, never has enough wealth to satisfy him and must be constantly grasping more and more. First Timothy 6:6-11 also warns against the trap of desiring wealth.  The bible tells us that it is harder for a rich man to get into heaven than it is for a camel to get through the eye of a needle, and that is because when one get caught into the trap of desiring wealth, that becomes their sole priority, everything else becomes second, including the will and the ways of God

We are also encouraged to be good stewards of what God has given us. In Luke 16:1-13, Jesus told the parable of the dishonest steward as a way of warning us against poor stewardship and making a habit of frivolous spending. The moral of the story is “So if you have not been trustworthy in handling what you have, who can trust you with true riches?” 

We are to be wise with our money. We are to save money, but not hoard it. We are to spend money, but with discretion and control. We are to give back to the Lord, joyfully and sacrificially. We are to use our money to help others.

It is not wrong to be rich, but it is wrong to love money. It is not wrong to be poor, but it is wrong to waste money on trivial things. The 2021 Financial focus is consistent with biblical teaching, be wise.

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