Time is flying by so quickly.
Every year must make a change.
Every month must forward the goal.
Every week must make a difference.
Every day must count.
Every hour must be pregnant with purpose.
Every moment must be divinely inspired.

 

New post by Michelle on taking credit for God’s work in our lives…Goodie Two-Shoes

 

The start doesn’t matter…it’s the end that really matters.

Old Man #1 had a vision. A dream.  A plan. He worked hard and got some money together and bought the old Sleeman mansion.

Originally owned by John Sleeman (the brewery guy), it’s a gorgeous limestone castle right by the main highway in Guelph, and directly across my the church I grew up in.  Old Man #1 had no intentions of turning the beautiful churchside castle into a house or a hotel.  Rather, he turned it into Guelph’s first and finest upscale strip joint.

Years later, Old Man #1 was in a car accident while vacationing in Florida.  He was gripped with the reality that life was short and that he’d been devoting his life to sin.  He quit the business…and started attending the church directly across the road from his landmark success.

For decades, he prayed that it would get shut down.  In his lifetime, and to this day, it remains Guelph’s most popular destination for sexual sin of all kinds (including, recently, trafficking).  The old man never got over the guilt he felt for his earlier choices.  He worked and campaigned hard to get it shut down.  He made his life all about loving people, winning some to Christ, and seeing the Kingdom of God grow because of his loving servanthood.  Old Man #1 had a bad start, but an excellent finish.

(not actual grumpy old man!)

Old Man #2 grew up in church.  In fact, when I knew him, he’d been a member of that (same strip-joint-adjacent) church for many decades.  He vehemently opposed the people who visited the strip joint, and very unlovingly disapproved of their actions. Not that it was a bad thing, just that he didn’t show much love in going about it.

Like most of us, he’d never been wrong a day in his life.  He was a sour, codgy old curmudgeon.  One day my friend John and I walked from school to church for a young gathering followed by a baptism. He’d never met us before, but thought it necessary to yell at us for wearing our hats “in the house of the Lord.”  (we were three feet into the foyer).  It broke our hearts.  Here’s a dude with wealth and knowledge and experience and family and a great church…but with no love in his heart.  He died a bitter old man.  Maybe in his younger days he was on fire for the things of God, but the end was self-evident…good start, bad finish.

How are you going to make sure that you finish well?

 

Hello Fellow Kingdom Stewards!

This post is for my mom. We had a conversation about money last week and she asked who she could read online regarding all-things personal finance.

Before you read it, I HIGHLY suggest that you read all about the Chocolate Cake Myth, The American Dream, and the White Picket Fence in yesterday’s post.

Money is important. Jesus talked about it more than heaven and hell combined. Where are treasure is, there are heart is also.  You can’t serve two masters. You know the deal!

We are BLESSED to be a BLESSING. I hope that you’re working towards becoming a Kingdom Millionaire. Hopefully this list helps.

Everyone has heard of Dave Ramsey, and he is an awesome guy. But information longs to be free- if you’re gonna charge for it, you’re gonna limit your audience.

So without further a-do, here’s my Top 15 list of amazingly tactical personal finance blogs that I read, and the reasons why I think they’re so awesome.

Simple Dollar
Trent Hamm is a godly dude from Iowa and a hardcore frugalist. #1 in my books. Tons of great resources. Start here- it’ll take you 5 years to implement everything he’s shared, for free, on this blog.

WiseBread
WiseBread is awesome. Super pretty too.

Man vs. Debt
A relative new-comer, Adam Baker is a Christ-following dude who’s bouncing from Indiana to Australia to New Zealand and soon over to Thailand…with his wife and kid. Posts include ‘Travel Hacks’, ‘Debt Tsunamis’ and ‘Tyler Durden’s Guide to Personal Finance.’

Mint Life
Mint is awesome and their blog is pretty. Read it for sure.

I Will Teach You to be Rich
Ramit Sethi is probably the ‘coolest’ of the bunch. Only Problem- he’s got an ego and you can feel it. His book is great. The website is full of great (albeit basic) tactics on how to automate your finances. He focuses on the ‘big wins’. A must-read.

Get Rich Slowly
“Personal Finance that Makes Cents.” And horrible puns.
JD Roth is widely considered the best in the business. He’s a great follow on Twitter.

TIME Money Blog
A recent post: How a 22-year-old New Yorker can save $5K/year while living in NYC for less than $30K. Nice.

Christian Personal Finance
Bob Lotich put up a cool quote this week… “I never would have been able to tithe the first million dollars I ever made if I had not tithed my first salary, which was $1.50 per week.” — John D. Rockefeller

Frugal Dad
Awesome name, ugly site, great content.

Gather Little by Little
Another great blog by a Christ-follower!

Bible Money Matters
Pete’s a good dude with sound financial advice from a Christ-following perspective.

I Was Broke, Now I’m Not
Joe Sangl worked for Newspring Church, and his ministry got so big that he had to quit! Now he helps churches all over the country!

Bargaineering
Jim Wang is definitely more technical…he gets into the taxation and legal sides quite a bit.

Squawk Fox

“Where frugal living is sexy, delicious, and fun.” Nuff said!

Honestly, there are so many more AMAZING PF bloggers…Shoe Money, No Debt Plan, Suburban Dollar, Budgets are Sexy…here’s who I’m following on my Personal Finance Twitter List

And here is Wise Bread’s list of the top 500 most popular personal finance blogs.

Find your favourites and get to work!

(ps…you’ll start to notice that there’s an impressive amount of Christians on the list…seems like Biblical wisdom works sometimes!)

Also be sure to check out Instructables, eHow, WikiHow, and How Stuff Works for tons of DIY (Do It Yourself) tips.

ALWAYS REMEMBER: we are blessed to increase our standard of giving, NOT our standard of living!

And if that doesn’t help, listen to John Piper…

Also today: A new rant from Michelle on body image called Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall.

 

Before I can put up a post about money and finances, I thought I should first share with you my current theology on cash, wealth, and the abysmal failure-of-a-way that we’re using God’s resources.  The first half is from my message last Sunday, which you can listen to here.

The Chocolate Cake Myth

The Chocolate Cake Myth says that you can take a regular vanilla cake, and that by sprinkling chocolate shavings on top, it magically becomes a chocolate cake.

Consider the vanilla life- the plain, ordinary, expectation-based ingredients of a ‘normal,’ regular, everyday life…

Go to school.
Get a job.
Work a 9-5, plus overtime, plus some take-home.
Do the commute. Watch the news, the sports, the weather.
Get married. Make babies.
Buy a car or two or three.
Buy a house, buy a cottage, buy a boat, buy some pets.
Stay busy constantly, or people will think that you’re lazy.
Stay distracted and entertained with movies, music, games, sports, video games…and lots of shopping.
Eventually retire.
Eventually die.

So we do we do as ‘Christians?’ We sprinkle on a little bit of Jesus.

We go to church.
Maybe we read and pray.
The super godly ones give lots.

But there’s no real change, and the world sees very little difference.

We have believed the Chocolate Cake Myth- that by taking a regular life, and by sprinkling some Jesus on top, it magically becomes a life in Christ.

The Bible says to “be transformed.” Like a little bit of yeast worked into bread, it changes everything forever. It can never be the same again, and there’s no doubt is different.

I can picture Jesus saying “I’d rather you be chocolate or vanilla- but if you’re a moldy mix, I’ll spit you out!”

If we live like the world and simply sprinkle on some Jesus, the world will continue to be left with a bad taste in their mouths.

The American Dream

The American Dream is the World’s Nightmare

You have too much everything. Me too.

1 Western citizen consumes the resources of 550 Ethiopians.

If the entire world lived like we do, the planet would be out of resources in less than a decade.

The early Christians believed that if one man owned a house and another man died on the streets, that the blood was on his head.

If the early Christians found out that one of their own didn’t have food, the entire community would fast until they could all afford to eat together.

King David prayed ‘Lord, give me neither poverty nor riches. For if I am rich I might forget you, but if I am poor, I might have to steal.”

Jesus Himself said, “God, I just want a Ferrari.” “Give us this day our daily bread”

Payraises
The Bible talks about money more than about heaven and hell combined.

Our earthly budget will some day be our heavenly reconciliation.

And for most of us, it’s going to look pretty bleak- that 10% was for God, but 90% was for us. That it was all about us.

Need we be reminded that “where are treasure is, there are heart is also.”

The deadliest epidemic in our world is selfishness. One of it’s greatest symptoms is ‘lifestyle inflation’.

Bigger.
Better.
More.

What folly.

When God chooses to increase our wealth (whether by income, gift, or inheritance), it is NOT for our own gain. As Matt Redman sings, “every blessing you pour out I’ll turn back to praise.”

We do this by increasing our standard of giving instead of our standard of living.

The White Picket Fence

The White Picket Fence Wasn’t God’s Idea. Believe it or not, God’s plan was for you to walk around naked and eat from the ‘interest’ of what the planet bore.  Not to work by the sweat of our brow and stripmine/rape the planet of all resources. But we screwed it up.

If God has a White Picket Fence idea, it is this- “I go to prepare a place for you. For in my house there are many mansions.”

Best part? He uses gold for pavement…because he knew it was worthless the whole time.

But we are easily distracted. As author Henry David Thoreau laments, “we have settled down on earth and forgotten heaven.”

And like the old song goes, “this world is not my home, I’m just a-passin’ through.”

This life was never meant to be comfortable.

“How can I get to heaven?” a rich young man asks Jesus. “By selling everything and giving it to the poor.”

Shane Claiborne reminds us that Jesus was a homeless refugee.  Jesus reminds us that “whatever you do to the least of these my brothers, you do to Me.”

The Bible reminds us that the journey home is treacherous- “that in this world you WILL have trouble.”

The way is hard. The road is narrow. The gate is small. Few ever find it.

Be one who does.

Because blessed are the poor is Spirit- for theirs is the kingdom of God.

Jay

Karen has a new post today on appearance called Pretty is as pretty does.

Michelle’s most recent post called Don’t talk more, talk better! on creating intentional conversation.