What is the most active thing that passes your hand? Yes, you have guessed it correctly, MONEY! Money constantly moves, and controlling it is quite a challenge. Most of the time it controls us and when that does, it tends to flow away from us. But managing it, we must. And the simplest way to manage it is to know what we have and what we are doing with it. Dave Ramsey on his Financial Wisdom book said, “Money is like a thoroughbred horse. You train it properly and it runs beautifully and powerfully under your reins. But when you left it on its own, it becomes wild-even dangerous!”

Prov. 27:23-24

“Be sure to know the condition of your flocks and give careful attention to your herds; for riches do not endure forever and a crown is not secure for all generations”.

Realized that we live within a limited budget. That’s the number one reason why we have to budget based on our needs not based on our wants. But the way we are spending our money shows that we don’t take total control of what we have. Most of the time instead of controlling money, money controls us as if we are riding a wild horse galloping and running whichever directions it wants to go. Money not managed and not controlled tends to flow AWAY from us. Let’s be sure that we “know the condition of our flocks and herds” because riches do not last forever (Prov. 27:23).

Who’s the boss?

Money wants to boss you around andreally; he is a bad boss for when you need him, most of the time he is not around to help you. At the time of your greatest need, he is gone! This should not be. Turn this around and give your money a job to do!At the beginning of each month, the moment you sit down to do your budgeting, you assign a task where your money should go and make him start working for you. Your needs are the tasksyou assignyour money to work on. Upon determining your needs (including your tithes, offerings and savings) and justifying how much you will spend for each task, then you command your hard earned dollars to go and pay all those tasks one by one. The idea is that your income minus your budgeted needs/expenses (including your tithes, offerings and savings) equals zero (Zero-Based Budget) that is spending to the level of your needs. You make your money to work hard for you leaving no room for your money to fool around and do what he wants.

The Zero Based Budget

The famous author, salesman and motivational speaker Zig Ziglar said, “If you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it every time.” Herein lies the value of planning ahead of time and as our Lord taught to “counting the cost”.

Managing your money equates to knowing what you really need not what you want. Most of the time we spend our money the other way around!

So according to one author, when we sit down to plan and do our budget we “make those dollars dance” for us!

Start listing down your needs giving them names and call them budget items, for example: food (but remember this list includes your tithes, offerings and savings). Assign your hard earned dollars to each budget item justifying the amount of how much you intend to spend for each item. Name them one by one and assign every single dollar to a name and a job to do. At the end your income should total your budgeted amount and the net balance zero. In the beginning you will have a hard time “balancing” your income and expenses. You will have to adjust amounts in each individual itemto come up with your zero net goal. But as you religiously do this every month you will become experts on how to balance both income and expenses.

Remember that we are learning how to manage God’s money and therefore, whenever we don our planning and budgeting, commit it to the Lord for He is the one who establishes our steps (Prov. 16:9).

When Credit loses its Credibility:

I was looking at my debit card and when I saw that MasterCard inscription on it, Prov.22: 7 came to mind “...the burrower is a slave to the lender” or otherwise stated, the lender is the MASTER of the burrower.

For so many years I was a slave to credit and up to now, I’ve been trying to gain back my freedom. I too believed the lie that credit is a natural part of our financial world and therefore you may overuse it to your so-called “advantage”.

Mammon have disguised himself to something deadlier and enticing and have given us the pseudo purchasing power and it’s in every person’s wallet and purses.

I don’t think the Lord prohibits indebtedness but he gave us a stern warning that indeed the burrower is a slave to the lender and therefore he admonishes us in Rom. 13:8 to “Let no debt remain outstanding”.

It’s been a year now that I’ve been practicing Rom. 13:8 disciplining myself hoping to achieve the other translation of the same verse which says “Owe nothing to anyone”.

Practicing my Zero Based Budget and purchasing my needs in cash has helped me stopped the bleeding, turned 180 degrees and I am on my way to freedom!

(Excerpts from my sermon Managing God’s Money)

The Wise Spares, the Fool Squanders

Most of us have a hard time recognizing savings as a need. As a matter of fact savings could be one of the lower if not the lowest priorities in our budget, that most of the time we forget about it or consciously dropit from our list. The common mentality is that if we have an “excess” in our budget thatamount couldbe designated as savings and very often that “excess” is not even there. Another common mistake in our thinking is that savings has something to do with the size of our income, that we can only have savings if our income is enough, meaning big enough, whatever that means.

The reality is that there are so many competitions out there that has a been given a better name than savings. Our eyes and so our money gravitate to these things, desire them and we end up spoiling ourselves satisfying our wants.

But we should consider savings and look at it as paying ourselves. We deserve it. And remember savings is not for the present but for future, “for a rainy day” and when those rainy days come, it pours. Those who have a healthy fear for the future prepare for the rainy day.

Proverbs 21:20 describe it right “The wise man saves for the future, the foolish man spends whatever he gets.”

First Give, and then Save, lastly Spend...

If we can only master the sequence give, save and spend in that order, then we will be on our way to attain not only financially stability and financial freedom but also peace of mind.

In all of the pre-marital counseling that I have done, I have encouraged would be married couple to practice and start with the 10-10-80 formula, i.e., 10% giving, 10% saving and 80% spending. I emphasize to them that this is foundational and as their income grows, which should be a natural trend, then they should consider modifying the formula by reducing the 80% and increasing the giving and the savings percentages appropriately as agreed by the couple.

I have noticed that the couples who have followed the formula tend to have better successes in controlling and managing their finances. Those who have haphazardly followed the formula have more issues and challenges in their hands when it comes to handling their finances.

The discipline is hard, for most of us see the 10% allocated to giving an expense rather than an investment. That 10% could very well pay for the extra pair of shoes to add to our collection, or some other cost that will cater to our amusement and entertainment. Others foolishly justify their non-practice of savings by saying that this shows our inability to trust and have faith in God who will provide. Yet these are the same people who shy away from giving which is based on faith on God promises to multiply 10, 20, 30 to 100 folds.

If we cannot commit ourselves to any workable formula that stresses giving and saving first and then spending, we’ll automatically default to the 100% spending formula. With the giving and the savings stricken out or taken for granted, we unconsciously set ourselves to fail not knowing that we are building a momentum that could lead to financial crisis/disaster. We might not feel it now but holes in our pockets are growing bigger and bigger and everything we put in it simply disappears. And then we wonder why?

2 Cor. 8:7 “See just as you excel in everything... see that you also excel in the grace of giving.”

Do we have or do we have not?

Many a time we complain of not having enough money to give or save. If we truly are honest to ourselves, we cannot give or save because we spend everything! Our ability to distinguish what is needed and what is wanted is flawed. Instead of knowing beforehand how we will handle our finances for the month, we go by our instinct, our buying instinct, established by our bad habits and driven by our desire to have.

Can we be trusted with the true riches of heaven?

God proves our trustworthiness by how we can be trusted in little things. Many a time we fail because our thinking is that we always lack. We complain that we don’t have enough thus our inability to save, more so to give. Giving and saving becomes impractical to the point we look at it as a goal,a goal that is unattainable. For how many of us truly give and/or save at the same time?

I oftentimes hear people talk about the many “ifs” before they can even give or save.The most famous one is “if I win the lottery, I will ..” It would seem that abundance is the basis for giving and saving, that we cannot give or save if we have less.

This is not true. With Luke 16:10-11, God invalidates this thinking and introduces his own “if” about being faithful with even the few we have.

If we are truly honest to ourselves, the reason we constantly fail is because we are trapped by our desire to spend, spend until there is no more. And when there is nothing left we complain that we don’t have enough.

This is made worse because of our flawed distinction betweenneed and want.And instead of figuring out beforehand how we will dispose of ourmoney, we go by our instinct, our buying instinct, developed by our bad habits and driven by our desire to have, actually to have more. So much in describing money as “liquid” asset, like water it flows from our hand.

Unfortunately, by our actions, we disqualify ourselves for being entrusted the true riches of heaven. How sad it is that only a few realize that how we handle our worldly wealth here on earth determines what treasures we will be entrusted in heaven.

God himself gives our indictment. If we cannot be trusted with a few, we cannot be trusted with many; if we are dishonest with a few, we will be dishonest with many; if we cannot be trusted with worldly treasures, we cannot be trusted with heavenly treasures.

What could be clearer than this?

The poor will always be with us..

Simply stated, poverty is the lack of material possession or money.

The Lord speaks that “the poorwill always be with us”.

There are those who are really poor and there are those who think they are poor.

Self-indulgence and lack of foresight swing the door open and invite poverty or the feeling thereof to enter. And once inside it is hard to drive away.

Be Accountable

I have been an accountant throughout my career. I have participated in numerous exercises on budgeting and financial analysis. I developed operating and overhead budgets worth millions of dollars and reasoned out with my bosses why we need to have a certain amount of money to spend for the year. I have also analyzed our spending versus our budget and determined reasons why we spent over the budget or why we spent less than our budget pointing out our good and bad spending habits, promoting the good and correcting and eliminating the bad. With these financial information in my hand, I established trends in our spending and made prediction of our expenditure for the year sometimes even up to 5 years. I made my living doing and was rewarded handsomely for helping companies manage and control their finances.

One would think that by default I could easily apply this knowledge to my situtatiion.

What I failed to recognize is that my knowledge in controlling and managing companies’ finances is applicable to me. You would think that this is automatic because that knowledge is with me and therefore by default I could apply it to any situation specially mine.

But knowledge is one thing and applying knowledge in your own situation is another thing. We call it wisdom and understanding. They are three legged and they work together and without the other, they cannot be complete. First you get knowledge and then applying knowledge you get wisdom and when you succeed or when you fail, then you gain understanding, your knowledge grows more and the cycle is once more started.