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Personal Finance From a Biblical Perspective

How to Choose A Career Path

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When considering a career path, one can feel overwhelmed by the various choices. In order to help you narrow down your choices, some well-meaning friend will tell you, “do what you love”, while another will say, “choose a career that will pay a lot of money”. Who is right in this case? How can you determine what path to take?

I was reading an article titled, “Doing What You Love Versus Doing What Pays” that looks at common advice on the subject. In reading the comments to that article, it seemed as though most of the readers would advise someone to choose a career path based on the potential income. Others still stuck with the “do what you love” advice that many hold to.

Career Path
Career Path

But is it really that simple? Let’s take a look at a few of the pros and cons to both of these views, and also see if there isn’t some other choice that we can make.

A Career Path that you don’t love but pays well:

Pros:

  • You will make a good amount of money
  • You will more than likely avoid the stress that comes from having a lower income (of course this ultimately depends on your financial discipline)
  • The added income may give you the financial freedom that you need to pursue what you love, as a hobby – or at least to not focus on the income it generates
  • You may be able to retire faster and then do what you love full-time

Career Path
photo credit: HikingArtist.com

Cons:

  • If you dislike a particular field, it may be harder to gain enough of an expertise in order to be highly compensated (for instance, those who hate math will not make top notch engineers)
  • You may be required to give up quality time with family and friends in order to accomplish your salary goal
  • Some people with higher incomes find it harder to exercise financial discipline than those with lower ones
  • Many high paying careers paths are also considered to be the most stressful
  • This stress will impact your relationship with family and friends over the long run

A Career Path that you love, regardless of the pay:

Pros:

  • Your love of that field will make you a great student, and so you may excel to the point where you are a top earner in that sector
  • You will have a sense of fulfillment and happiness from your work
  • The lower salary may force you to develop financial discipline
  • You may have lower levels of work-related stress

Career Path

photo credit: icadrews

Cons:

  • Lower salary – you may have to live a much simpler life
  • May take you longer to retire – this may not be a big issue for you if you absolutely love your job
  • If you lose your job, it may be harder to find a new one – although there are a few low paying jobs that are in demand

A couple of things to note. First, this is by no means an exhaustive list. Actually, I am counting on your comments below to help fill in the missing pieces. Second, you will notice that many of these points use uncertain terms like “may”, or “many”; this is due to the fact that many of these will not be true in EVERY case.

My take on choosing a Career Path is this:

I think that the answer to this question is different for everyone and is a matter of prospective. My initial reaction to this question was, “If you can get paid a ‘decent’ living wage for doing what you love, go for it! We wouldn’t have teachers, social workers, or pastors if people didn’t follow this line of thinking.” I also said to myself, “Money isn’t everything, and if you have to be miserable for 10 hours/day just to make a few extra dollars, it probably isn’t worth it.”

Do what you love, and if the pay isn’t great, lower your standard of living to match your pay. You can’t determine your standard of living apart from your income. In other words, LIVE WITHIN (or actually below) YOUR MEANS! This is true no matter what your income turns out to be.

However, for many there is little to no career opportunity in what they “love“. In that case, find a balance. Do something you like, and if it doesn’t pay enough to maintain your desired standard of living, try to make a few bucks from what you love. Like others have said, don’t choke the life out of what you love by focusing on money, but maybe you can be a consultant in that area or start a blog giving advice about it.

Ultimately, we should be content with whatever financial/work situation in which we find ourselves. In the words of the Apostle Paul:

Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. ~ Philippians 4:11-13

We see from this passage that our situation should not be able to determine our satisfaction or contentment in this life – especially if we are slaves to Christ!

Personally, I happened to “like” a field that is in good demand (Economics & Finance). However, my true love is Theology, and that may be something that is in my future.

What about you? What choice did you make? Any regrets? How would you advise someone in choosing a career path? Would you tell them to look for money, happiness, or both?

To help you in your choice, Payscale.com has released it’s list of “Best Undergrad College Degrees By Salary”:

Degrees Degrees
Methodology
Annual pay for Bachelors graduates without higher degrees. Typical starting graduates have 2 years of experience; mid-career have 15 years. See full methodology for more.

Not an engineer or an economist? Here is the full list: http://www.payscale.com/best-colleges/degrees.asp

Be sure to leave your comments below.

 

photo credit: jeremy.wilburn

3 Ways to Honor the Lord with Your Wealth

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There is clear instruction to honor the Lord with your wealth in the scriptures.

In Proverbs 3:9-10 we find this command: “Honor the Lord from your wealth and from the first of all your produce; so your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will overflow with new wine.”

Honor the Lord with Your Wealth

In our finances, we are expected to give our BEST and FIRST to God! God commanded the nation of Israel saying, “You shall bring the choice first fruits of your soil into the house of the Lord your God” (Exodus 23:19a) and when detailing the offerings that went toward supporting the priests He says, “You shall give him the first fruits of your grain, your new wine, and your oil, and the first shearing of your sheep” (Deuteronomy 18:4).

We are to honor the Lord with all that we have. How we behave with our finances does a lot to reveal our heart toward God. Jesus said, “…for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also“. ~ Matthew 6:21

How Do You Honor the Lord With Your Wealth?

How do we accomplish this?

We are exhorted to trust Him.

We are instructed in verse 5 of Proverbs 3 to “trust in the Lord with all [our] heart and do not lean on [our] own understanding”. Trusting God is the first step in honoring Him – this is true in salvation, finances and all other affairs of life. According to Romans 4:3 (quoting Genesis 15:6), this is what pleased God about Abraham.

Often times when we falter in our faith, we don’t realize it is due to unbelief, or in other words, a lack of trusting in God. When it comes to our finances, this can be seen by our dependence on money to ‘save’ us from trouble or blaming our lack of money on our troubles.

We have to remember that no matter what life may bring us, God is our source. He is the one who brings prosperity and opportunity to us, and as His children, He promises to supply our needs because He is a caring Father. Matthew 6:25-35

“For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?

And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.

But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

In times of doubt, we must cry out to the Lord as the man who needed Jesus’ help to heal his son in Mark 9:24  “I do believe; help my unbelief.”

We are also expected to be generous and ready to share.

Proverbs 11:24-29 tells us:

“There is one who scatters, and yet increases all the more, and there is one who withholds what is justly due, and yet it results only in want. The generous man will be prosperous, and he who waters will himself be watered. He who withholds grain, the people will curse him, but blessing will be on the head of him who sells it. He who diligently seeks good seeks favor, but he who seek evil, evil will come to him. He who trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will flourish like the green leaf. He who troubles his own house will inherit wind, and the foolish will be servant to the wise-hearted.”

Also in 1 Timothy 6:17-19, we find this instruction:

Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed.

It is amazing to see this principle played out over and over again in our lives. If you are generous even when you have little, God seems to bless your finances to be able to do more than most who have more money than you.

We constantly hear and read about people who recovered from massive amounts of debt while staying faithful (and in many cases increasing) to giving. In fact, most respected financial advisers (many of whom do not believe God’s word) will tell their clients that giving has to be an integral part of their lives in order to be successful financially.

We should be fair in our dealings with others.

In verses Proverbs 3:27-28 we find the following instruction,

“Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it. Do not say to your neighbor, ‘Go, and come back, and tomorrow I will give it,’ when you have it with you.”

As believers, we are called to an even greater level of consideration as we contemplate Christ’s goodness towards us and His example. Philippians 2:3-4 states:

“Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.”

So in doing all of these things we will begin to honor the Lord with our wealth; which, according to verse 10, will lead to God sustaining us, causing us to be prosperous (cf Luke 6:38, Matthew 6:33) and satisfied (Philippians 4:11-13)!

For more on developing a biblical view of wealth, see our previous article here: http://knsfinancial.com/2010/01/10/wealth-from-the-bible/

 

 

Photo for social media by Suphakit 73 @ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Prosperity Gospel? We Should Know Better!

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Give your money to God, and He will return it many times; have you ever heard that message or some variation of it preached? Do you believe it? In many churches, that belief is close to being the eleventh commandment. It’s often implied as give God a dollar, and he will give you back ten.

That’s the prosperity gospel, and it’s preached in many TV ministries as well as more than a few local churches.

Feel free to disagree, but I think that this teaching if flawed on a number of fronts.

Prosperity Gospel

The “Return” On Giving Isn’t Usually Monetary

Malachi 3:10 is often cited as the source verse for the prosperity gospel. In it, God tells the Israelites to “test him” in the matter of tithes. The “reward” God provides for faithful tithing is widely interpreted by the believers in the prosperity gospel to be money, but is it? Let’s examine that assumption.

”Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.”—Malachi 3:10

Notice that there’s no promise of monetary reward. Instead, God promises to “throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing”. While a blessing can be financial, it’s actually a much broader word. Blessing can be any one of dozens of benefits, most of which having nothing to do with money.

It’s unquestionable that God can and does multiply our generosity, but not usually in ways that we think. He can, for example, use a $100 gift from one person to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to ten other people. Even though the giver never sees any financial gain as a result of his or her gift, that gift has nonetheless been multiplied.

In the Parable of the Sheep and Goats (Matthew 25:34-40), when Jesus commends the righteous, they aren’t even fully aware of the good work they have done: ”Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? The good work they did was done with no expectation of reward!

Personally, I believe that God does bless our giving, but not usually in the ways we think. It’s usually not monetary, and there’s certainly no mathematical return to it. Not ten-to-one, or any other type of ratio.

We Need To Support The Church

Before we go any further, I want to make clear the obvious fact that we do have a Biblical requirement to support the Church. But that support must be done with an open heart and no expectation of any sort of earthly benefit as a result of doing so. If there were an earthly benefit, we would be doing it for the reward, and not out of love for God for what he’s already done for us.

Where Does The Prosperity Gospel Come From?

There are at least two sources:

Our own hearts. We can easily support the idea of something like a ten-to-one monetary return in our human desire for riches. Attaching some sort of heavenly stamp of approval/partnership with God message to it gives it a higher purpose.

From the pulpit. Too many Christians get their “Scripture” from other people, rather than from the Bible. We hold pastors and preachers in high esteem and assume that they’ve done the job of studying the Word of God for us. Chances are, if your pastor or favorite TV preacher believes in the prosperity gospel, then you will too.

The only way to know the truth of God’s Word is by studying it ourselves, and praying and meditating over it. Any time we accept the interpretations of others, we’re leaving ourselves open to false doctrines.

The Anti-Prosperity Message Of The New Testament

If we compare the prosperity gospel to the teachings of the Bible, we find little support for it. In fact, in the New Testament, we see example after example of quite the opposite. Consider the following verses:

”For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.”—1 Timothy 6:10

”It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God”—Mark 10:25

“Peter answered: “May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money!”—Acts 8:20

The prosperity gospel seeks to enter into something like a business deal with God, and we can see from these verses—and so many others—that that isn’t a true relationship with God.

Jesus Had No Money, And Accepted No Money

We have no evidence from the Bible that Jesus ever collected money from anyone. In fact, in the exact opposite direction, Jesus drove the money changers out of the temple accusing them of making it a “den of robbers” (Matthew 21:12).

Meanwhile He counted himself among the poor. In Matthew 8:20 Jesus says, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

Based on these facts, can we believe that Jesus Christ—the figure at the very heart and soul of the Christian faith—would somehow advocate anything resembling the prosperity gospel?

Attaining Prosperity Through Giving Focuses Completely On The Self

For me, this is the point that makes the strongest case against the prosperity gospel. If we give based on the assumption that we’ll be financially blessed, then we aren’t giving out of a pure heart. We’re giving based on the expectation of a return on our gifts. That really turns gifts into investments, and that can’t be true.

If we’re giving with the expectation of a financial reward, then the giving isn’t about God or the people we’re giving to. It’s really about our attempt to improve our lot in life through an implied financial alliance with God—and that’s really all about us.

From a Biblical perspective, if anything we do is about us, it isn’t about God, and we shouldn’t expect to be blessed for doing it.

What to you think about the prosperity gospel? I know some people swear by it, but from where I sit, it doesn’t fit with Scripture. Feel free to disagree!

photo credit: Freedigitalphotos.net

You Just Won $1 Million…Now What?

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Many of us have dreamed of what we would do if we were given $1 million. But have you really sat down and figured out what you would do? Let’s assume that you are given, or win $1 million after taxes. What would you do?

Here’s what I would do…warning, boredom ahead!

  • Pay off debt – Every extra dime that we bring in is going toward this goal, so that wouldn’t change.

  • Pay off my parent’s debt – That still wouldn’t repay them for all that they’ve done for me in my over 3 decades on this earth, but it’s a start!

  • Give much more than 10% to my church – One of our strongest motivations for getting out of debt is supporting our local church!

  • Retire – Well, sort of. I would focus more on this site and my consulting business. This would free me up to get the necessary certifications and full-time experience to become a financial adviser.

  • Save – I would fully fund IRA’s for both of us, and put aside 1 year worth of living expenses.

  • Take an extended vacation – We love to travel, but we hate debt even more, so we are usually limited in our options. We would probably go somewhere (or a couple of places) for at least a month!

  • Buy a new laptop for my wife – Her laptop is so beat up and run down – I would have no problem replacing it!

  • Buy a house? – I think I would need more than $1 million to do this. I detest mortgages, so if I wouldn’t have enough left over to pay cash, then we’d wait. I have no real desire to own a home (I haven’t been fooled by the “pride of ownership” brainwashing), and would only do this so we could better help out family if they needed it. I honestly don’t know if I would rent or buy in this case!

So, there you have it. That is my boring list.

How would you spend your $1 million?


photo credit: aresauburn™

Helping Those in Need is a Reflection of God’s Love!

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According to the bible, helping others is a very tangible, practical way to express God’s love.  We can’t be so focused on “getting more” that we miss chances to serve other people.

We must understand that it is God who supplies our needs, and we have to stop trusting in our possessions. Those who are wealthy have to be very careful in that area. That is why God gives these instructions to them:

Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed. ~ 1 Timothy 6:17-19

Being “generous and ready to share” isn’t just a command for the rich. Hebrews 13:16 tells us:

And do not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.

There are two main ways that we can disobey this command.

Trusting in riches more than God:

As 1 Timothy 6:17 says, we are “not to be conceited or fix [our] hope on the uncertainty of riches“. Trusting in our riches can make us not want to help others in two ways.

First, we may fall victim to what the bible calls “the pride of life” (1 John 2:16) – a strong feeling of pride over our accomplishments and possessions.  This may cause you to feel as though the needy person is just lazy and needs to work harder in order to better themselves. You may look down on them because you had to work hard to “earn” what you have, and you feel that they should do the same.

Second, we sometimes can gain a false security from having money. In these cases, it will be very difficult to part with our money or possessions in order to help someone else. We may start to think, “if I give money to someone who won’t be able to pay me back, what will I do if I get hit with an emergency?”.

However, if we are trusting in God to provide for us, we will be willing to give without the fear that we will have no provision for the future!

Overlooking small ways to be a blessing:

Life can be so busy and distracting that it can be easy to overlook those in need. Oftentimes, we can be can be so caught up in ourselves that we neglect to be helpful to others.

Many times as Christians, we are searching for huge ways to show God’s love to others! We have visions of doing grand things such as adopting a child, or flying to Haiti (or some other country) and helping out with disaster relief.

However, small, personal  sacrifices are what pleases God and impacts our brothers!

James 2:15-16 gives a good example of that point:

If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?

Here James is showing how faith and good works should coexist in a Christian’s life. Our good works should flow out of our faith; and a life without them is a good indication of a lack of faith!

He doesn’t use being a missionary, selling all your goods in order to support poor Christians, or even taking in orphans! Instead he uses as an example a brother or sister who is in need of the very basics of life.

We must never overlook those who are close to us in search of some “greater calling”; if God’s love is in our heart, we will seek to help even “the least of these” (Matthew 25:40)!

In 1 John 3:17 we find these words:

But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?

This isn’t a verse that needs a lot of explanation. If you have something, and your brother (another Christian) is in need and you refuse to help, this is a good indication that the love of God isn’t in you!

Those of us who were blessed to have more than enough to meet our basic needs, should always be willing to share with others who are not.

Much more could be said on the subject, but I just wanted to share a thought that was on my heart.

A few questions for you:

Have any of these stumbling blocks stopped you from giving to someone in need?

What are some ways that you defeat pride in your life?

Do you incorporate helping others into your budgets and other financial planning?

Have you even been the recipient of this sort of help?

What has motivated you to help others?

photo credit: liberalmind1012

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