- More budgeting: Biblical Stewardship
- Improve your Budget
- Create a Budget
- Why do I need a budget?
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Biblical stewardship is more than a good budget, saving and giving the right amount of money. It is about having a proper biblical relationship with money.
Our problems with money don’t begin when we spend more than we make; they begin when we forget that God must be at the center of this part of our lives. When you have no bigger purpose for your cash than your own enjoyment, you are already in money trouble. –Paul David Tripp, Sex and Money: Pleasures That Leave You Empty and Grace That Satisfies
I liked to say, when I was a youth pastor, “There is a non-smoking, virgin section of hell.” My point was that being a follower of Christ is more than just not doing the wrong things, or even doing the right things. It is easy to fall into this same trap with money. Most people who write about the money miss this point entirely. I wrote about money years ago and I missed this point a lot. It is why I want to write about biblical stewardship now. You can spend less than you make, pay off all of your debt and give the magic amount to your church and still not have God in the center of your financial life.
We each have some sinful way of looking at money; I look at money to keep me safe. I look at money to be my functional savior and it ends up being my master. How many of us are now working harder than we want to work to pay for things we purchased long ago or things we think we need to keep up with our neighbors. We can easily become slaves to our desire for money.
Some people have shunned money and taken on a poverty theology some have tried to use Jesus as their personal ATM loving money more than God. Both of these ideas are sinful and will lead us toward a sinful way of handling our money. We need to look at money as a tool to be used and stewarded just like anything else in our lives. Money should be used properly to the glory of God and that should be our goal as Christians.