The Money Secret

The Money Secret

Money Money Money. Show me da money. In fact show me how much money you spent last week and what you spent it on. Money is important, money is necessary, it is a form of exchange. But money is also very emotional, money arouses different emotions in different people. Some of us get excited when we think of money because we think of ideas for making money, others of us get apprehensive because we fret if there'll be enough money to meet our obligations. Yet at other times we may be delighted because we have more than enough money.... we are "laughing all the way to the bank" or maybe laughing all the way to the shops, depending on our temperament! And for some of us we just smile when we hear the word money, because we know mum and dad have lots and will hand it out to us. Some say money makes the world go round, but that's not in my Bible, when I last looked God was still in control of the world. It is surprising though how money can control our lives, and it does not matter whether we have lots of it or in debt to the tune of tens of thousands. Most people know how much money they earn each month, but its surprising how many of us dont know how much we spend each day, each week, each month. However, the secret to gaining control over money is not about how much we earn but how much we spend and how much we owe. When we take control over how much we spend then we are on the way to having control over money. But how do we go about this? On saturday we looked at two scriptures: 1 Timothy 6: 7 - 10 which talks about being content (satisfied) with what we have and also about the dangers of loving money too much. But what do we actually need to be content? Just food and clothes or is more required. One thing seems to be certain, most of us have a lot more than what we need to be content. How much money do we need in the bank in order to be content? Only you can answer that question honestly before God. Our spending is often driven by not being content with what we have, in order to gain control of our spending we need to discover contentment. The other scripture we looked at was Romans 13: 7 - 8, this passage tells us to fulfil our obligations, be it paying taxes, dues or respect. Let no debt be outstanding except the continuing debt to love one another. This passage echoes Jesus' words "give to God what is God's, and to Ceasar what is Cesar's." What are our obligations to God in respect of our money? How about tithing, giving to support the work of the local church and missions? How about supporting our family? How about supporting other Christians that may be struggling, as they did in the early church? How about paying our taxes? Yeah taxes! Taxes auch! There are some passages in the bible that are not a delight to read and the one on taxes is one of them for me. However, if we are to call ourselves followers of Jesus, we must obey God in all things, not just when we feel like it. In order to be able to meet all our obligations, we need to plan our spending, another word for this is budgetting. A budget is a powerful tool that helps us see exactly where our money goes each day, week, and month. Yet its amazing how we let procrastination prevent us from enjoying the peace and joy that come from being in control of money. When we budget we can also plan to save and invest for our future. In the book The Money Secret

http://www.careforthefamily.org.uk/resources/category.asp?catcode=20org.uk/resources/category.asp?catcode=20 there is this quote "I vowed I would never again be in more debt than I had cash in the bank." That is the crux of the matter, making sure we do not spend more than what we have the cash for. One age old way of doing this is planning using a budget. The wisdom of long ago I call it. The stewardship of money requires wisdom and discipline, wisdom in planning how we use our money, and discipline to stick to that plan. So how much money did you spend last week and what did you spend it on? How much money do you plan to spend this week, and on what? Please feel free to add your comments.... the issue of money is huge and we've not even fully scratched the surface.