Hope for your financial life and beyond

If You Had One Wish, Would It Be For Money?

Hidden Nuggets Series #7: “Ask! What shall I give you?” – God speaking to Solomon in II Chronicles 1:7

“Oh, no…not me. My values are nobler than that. Money doesn’t hold that kind of power in my life that it would be the first thing I would wish for.”

Genie bottle

Image at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Really?

Careful Pinocchio.

A respected gentleman in my life circle likes to say, “It’s not the money, it’s the money” in reference to decisions that have a financial related angle. Another way to say that is “money answers everything.” Know where that last phrase is found? If you said in the Bible, you would be right. Look it up, it’s there in Ecclesiastes 10:19.

I’d love to ask Solomon, the writer of Ecclesiastes, what he meant by that. I know money can’t buy our way into heaven and I’m pretty confident he knew that also. It can buy pleasure and perhaps bring a sense of happiness but cannot produce joy. It can construct a multi-million dollar church facility to initially get people in the door but it’s not what keeps them coming back.

His statement in Ecclesiastes becomes a bit more confusing when we realize that Solomon didn’t always think that money was the answer for everything.

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Attachment: The Giving Killer

Hidden Nuggets Series #4  – ”You shall not delay to offer the first of your ripe produce and your juices…” – Exodus 22:29

1993 JeterMy baseball cards are pretty special to me. My first ones were collected in the early 1980s as rewards after our Little League games. Our coach would give us each a dollar to use at the concession stand when we won. I always purchased a small Barq’s cream soda and two packs of baseball cards. The trip home from the ball field was spent shuffling through the cards to locate my favorite Cincinnati Reds players, all the while chomping on the stale gum from the card packs.

That began a favorite hobby of mine that has continued off and on to this day as I’ve amassed around 12,000 cards. If you came to my house though, you would never know it because for the last 10 years 98% of them have been boxed away in the basement, tucked neatly into baseball card pages and three-ring binders. The other 2% are in the fire safe box, also basically locked away from view.

Every so often, I think about selling the cards, thus ridding myself of the torture of always moving the boxes when they are in the way. Something holds me back though.

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Trayvon, Zimmerman and Our Road to Healing

On Sunday and Monday my Facebook news feed blew up.

Black White HandshakeOf course, everyone had an opinion about the much publicized and politicized court case from Florida that had finally ended late Saturday night in a not guilty verdict for George Zimmerman. Few of the opinions were intelligent enough to warrant reflection on my part. Most just expressed pent up frustration and anger, pointed in blame or cried out for justice.  It would not surprise you in the least to know the opinions from my group of friends were basically split along political and racial lines.

I was not alive in 1960s America when the years of racial tension finally exploded and produced the civil rights legislation that changed the face of America and gave an entire subset of American citizens a new reason to dream. I can’t relate to the level of violence that was present in that era. I only know what I see now in 2013 and from my vantage point, it doesn’t appear as though this country is progressing in a more unifying direction. And that’s a shame after 237 years of freedom.

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Would it Make You Sad to Give Away Your Possessions?

BMW

It’s a tough question to answer, isn’t it? My mind immediately goes to the question “How much stuff am I being asked to give away?” I could easily part with many things in my house and not feel any pain.

But what if I was being asked to give away the entire house? Or my cars? Or sell all my investments and give the proceeds away? Oy, that’s enough…I’m starting to get woozy.

I can think of only one instance where this might occur…

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For the Love of Money

VaultI brought this post out of The Vault today to do two things:

1) to remind myself on this Valentine’s Day the trap that awaits when I choose to put my affection in the wrong place and,

2) to introduce a new feature on Luke1428 called “Theology Thursdays.” It is my goal for Thursday’s post to include a spiritual perspective as it relates to our responsibilities towards money, wealth and personal finance.  Hopefully that will be a blessing to you as I share what is on my heart.

So with that introduction, re-enjoy “For the Love of Money” (first appeared on Aug. 3, 2012). 

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“Money money money money, MONEY!”

“Some people got to have it…some people really need it…Hey, listen to me, y’all do thangs, do thangs, do thangs – bad thangs with it.

Well, you wanna do thangs, do thangs, do thangs – good thangs with it…talkin’ about cash money…

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Does Poverty Itself Destroy the Poor?

Does your worldview begin with blaming others?

In the first phrases of Proverbs 10:15 and Proverbs 18:11, we see that Solomon describes the rich man’s wealth as his strong city. Although wealth cannot protect us from evil, sicknesses, or other life emergencies, it can provide our life with some level of security and stability. It lessens our emotional anxiety, knowing we have enough resources to pay for things. It helps us manage through unexpected and expensive life events. We can also use wealth to produce more and, in the process, benefit others along the way as we give.

In the concluding phrase of Proverbs 10:15 Solomon offers a contrast to the strong city analogy when he says, “…the destruction of the poor is their poverty.” I find this interesting because Solomon does not say that a series of unfortunate events happened in these peoples’ lives and those events are what destroyed them (or made them poor). The emphasis here seems to actually read that poverty itself is what causes their destruction. Interesting. What is he referring to here? What destructive impact would an impoverished financial state have on a person’s life?

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“Hey Jesus…You Hungry?”

What if you could have anything you ever wanted? What if you could click your fingers and have your needs satisfied, your wants realized and your desires fulfilled? This would be your very own genie-in-a-bottle scenario without the three-wish restriction.

This sounds really enticing, to have everything your heart desires, whenever you want it. Think about it…food…fame…love…power…riches…peace. From your most basic needs to your most extravagant, nothing would be beyond your reach. And the best part is, you could provide that all by yourself just by wishing it to happen.

All right…pinch yourself…dreamtime is over. Of course, this is not reality for us. It will never happen. But there was one man in history that had the ability to make this happen. Thank God he chose not to.

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