Margin and Meaning

For those of you new to Free Money Finance, I post on The Bible and Money every Sunday. Here's why.

The following is an excerpt from Building Your Financial Fortress in 52 Days: The Lessons of Nehemiah. This post is from Day 47.

Do it His way! His way means more of both margin and meaning. Simply put, margin is what we save and meaning is what we spend. Our significance is found in spending. Show me your checkbook and I will tell you definitively where your significance lies. The problem is that the places and the things most people spend their money, time, talents, and energy on are not meaningful. Finding one’s significance in things is temporary. That is why you must keep buying, keep spending, keep upgrading, because the thing or things you just bought will not satisfy for long. The American dream and the ideals of getting bigger, better, and more are not easily reconcilable with Christianity.

When you get to Heaven, do you think God is going to say, “Wow, millions died without knowing Me on your watch, but that fountain outside your house was gorgeous. And I loved your Hummer and centralized vacuum system. People saw those things and instantly dropped to their knees and gave their lives to Me.” Do you think anyone will come up to you and say, “I was orphaned when my parents starved to death, but your big- screen TV was my saving grace. Thank you.”

This is not to say that having things is bad, but some perspective is needed. When simply owning a car puts you in the elite 8 percent of the world’s population, does having a BMW seem as important? When the world’s health and education needs could be wiped out with the dollar amount that Americans spend each year on ice cream, does having the very best seem as satisfying? Always remember, our world is not the world.

The God-given desire for satisfaction will wrestle with our hearts and minds until we temper that desire, this time hoping to have long-term satisfaction. Then we find that we must anesthetize our hearts once again, and when the satisfaction wanes, Madison Avenue is quick to offer a new fix to inject into our hearts and bring us a very transitory joy.

As long as the money holds out and the series of injections continue, we will stay on that roller coaster, until we choose one of three paths. One, the path of the enlightened who saw this path of destruction and decided death was far better, two, the holders of hope who, even if logically futile, merely continue on with this destructive and meaningless lifestyle of spending and consuming, or three, those who choose to leave the destructive path and believe that there is a God who loves them deeply and is waiting for them right now with open arms, without rolling His eyes or shaking His head.

His nail-scarred hands are outstretched, a testament to the sacrifice He welcomed in order to save our souls from death in hell and to give us a life on this planet that is truly rich. Not the wimpy, unsatisfying riches of money and consumerism, but true, altruistic contentedness.

If we could take a step back, take a look at our lives, and eschew the worldly wisdom that bigger is better, we would see our path could never satisfy. His path is the only one that truly satisfies. That is why Nehemiah chose such an endeavor, gave up so much in the earthly sense, because he knew that what he gave up paled in comparison to the eternal greatness of following the path God had for him.

Here are some steps to take:

1st - Surrender: God, I will do it your way from now on; I surrender this part of my life that I have been holding back. (Remember Nehemiah’s prayer in Chapter 1:5-12.)

2nd - Come clean: Just stop it! Do it His way and you will avoid financial pain. It’s old school. It’s called obedience.114

3rd - Get out of debt, stay out of debt: Tell those people who say that debt is good that 1.8 billion people in the world live on one dollar or less a day, and one dies every second from hunger. If those folks really, truly cared about life they wouldn’t give another cent to the credit card companies in interest. They would invest in people’s lives.

4th - Start saving: Again, obedience.

5th - Get serious about investing: Not for the next forty years. I am talking about serious, intelligent investing; the kind of investing that saves lives. The money entrusted to us can either bring people to know God in a deeper way or send people to their deaths and many to hell. We can use money for our pleasures, comfort, and keeping up with the Joneses, but this nauseating life just gets more and more crazy as we continue on the treadmill of debt. Or we can use money to glorify Him.

This runs completely contrary to conventional financial wisdom and that is why I love it so much. If the world is so good at handling money, why aren’t there more content, satisfied people who are chasing money as a way of life? I call them financial hedonists—seeking money and what money can acquire as a way of life. Much different from the Christian hedonist, as John Piper coins it, “My shortest summary of Christian hedonism is: God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.”

God’s idea of financial hedonism is found in multiple places in His Scriptures. The Apostle Paul wrote a letter to Timothy and basically said to him, “Tell those with more money than they need to not put their trust and hope in it because, frankly, you can’t trust money. You never know what may happen to it, but trust God, and remember it is okay to enjoy it as gift from God. But if you want great joy, the joy that will last through this life and throughout eternity, the amount of money you have been entrusted with can show people who your God is, and will bring people to know Him. Thus, people will be going to Heaven instead of hell because of your generosity.”

So upgrade your desires today.

Comments

[Jonathan@Friends and Money]

Great post. I think that it boils down to where you place your focus. For me money is an essential part of day to day living, without it you cannot pay the bills but believing that it is the be all and end all is misguided. I totally agree that having a healthy attitude which is not money centered is key.

[Kevin@OutOfYourRut]

I think you're right on the money with this post. One of the core messages of the Bible is that we don't get our roots down too deep in the world. Our roots are going too deep when we give into the drive to consume, because consumption is all about impressing others.

Apart for a deeper relationship with God, our financial situations are better when we consume less. When we do, there's more left for saving and investing. When we save and invest, there's more money available to invest in the Kingdom of God, which is where our treasures should lie if we're following Scripture.