

Money and Fear
No recession in heaven, He owns & controls everything. In heaven, worrying about money & fear doesn’t make sense. On earth, we all just need to ask God to provide! He enjoys providing for the faithful.
“Faith is essential in your success. Faith is needed in almost every area of our lives: work, projects, and small business endeavors,” – Alex Cook
I’m often asked about what makes some people good with money while others struggle. I could answer that in several ways, but let me do so by dividing the issue into two camps: the practical camp and the spiritual camp.
Some people in the practical camp manage money well because they live beneath their means, save, invest and live generously. Then there are those who are in the spiritual camp, who know God intimately, and know his word and are obedient to it. Both these camps are generally good with money. The most fruitful person is the one who has their foot firmly in both camps and they implement sound practical measures as well as walk intimately with God.
For this article, I want to focus on just one important Christian practice – intimacy with God. I believe that one of the biggest problems we have in western culture today is that we have millions of people in our churches who don’t really know God. Sure, many of them could quote a few bible passages and appear on the surface to have it together. But many people don’t really know God. That is, they don’t know His character, His provision, His power and who He really is.
Let me give you an example. In the morning, when my three kids wake up, they don’t sit around worrying if there will be food for breakfast, or lunch or dinner. They don’t worry about whether mum and dad will pay the rent or mortgage and where the money comes from to pay for their schooling. Why won’t they worry? They simply trust that mum and dad will meet their needs. It doesn’t occur to them that there might not be food on the table if the pay check didn’t arrive.
Sadly, as we get older and enter the workforce, the worries kick in and the trust declines. We begin to doubt God’s goodness, his love for us and his willingness to provide. Events in our life seem to conspire against us and our faith wanes.
We need to get back that child-like intimacy and faith and realise that we have a God that is able to meet all our needs.
KNOWING GOD
To be intimate with God and to truly trust Him we need to work on the following:
God’s Character
God’s Power
God’s Provision
What does intimacy look like?
Think about when you were a young child and the kinds of questions you asked your parents. Is it really any different? No. The questions may be different but the dependency is the same. In an intimate relationship with God:
In a practical sense, we need to engage with God. Here are some thoughts on how we can do this:
Some of the most successful Christian business people I know take one full day off per week from their businesses to spend it with God. They all put their success down to spending this time with God. Don’t mishear me. I am not saying you should spend time with God in order to become successful. I am saying you should spend time with the God that loves you because you desire it and want to know Him better and obey Him. The outcome of this increased intimacy will be a life of increased fruitfulness.
For me, I get up each weekday morning between about 5 to 5:30am and go into my home office for about 45 minutes to an hour, read the word, worship to music and pray, and then each Wednesday I take half a day off to spend it with God. I am no hero let me assure you, but I find this time has helped my faith and I encourage you to build this into your life.
My belief is that intimacy with God will lead you to become better with money. Why? Because the inevitable consequence of spending time in God’s word, devouring his wisdom, and seeking his guidance and being led by His Holy Spirit can only lead to one thing – great, God honouring decisions!
OTHER ARTICLES
No recession in heaven, He owns & controls everything. In heaven, worrying about money & fear doesn’t make sense. On earth, we all just need to ask God to provide! He enjoys providing for the faithful.
If you understand that the wealth you have right now is God’s money, then you should start thinking about passing it with a purposeful sense.
Protecting our wealth really means protecting our families and ourselves from these financial hardships that have a setback to our finances.
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