Money Matters (to God)

By J. Bradley Van Vleet Jr.

I know what you're thinking: "Another book on money!" And you're right, this is another book on money, but it's probably not quite from the angle that you're thinking. Money Matters (to God) is a book about seeing finances through the eyes of God instead of the eyes of society. Through this book, we will walk through the scripture to see what the Bible actually has to say about money and how we should use it. You may be surprised to see what's there. Money is an important topic to God. You can clearly see that through the Old and New Testaments. Jesus talked more about money than He did about heaven or hell. Money is important to God simply because it's important to us. Sometimes too important. My prayer is that, through this book, you will be able to shed the burden of financial stress through priority and perspective.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098059996

Book preview

1

Honesty Is the Best Policy

He who dies with the most toys still dies.

—Unknown

Malcolm Forbes is accredited with the saying He who dies with the most toys wins. It was a popular saying in an age long before social media began spitting out quotes left and right. I’m not certain just how it became so popular in American culture, but it did. Someone eventually came along and gave this quote an eerily twist of truth: He who dies with the most toys still dies. If we were to sit back and spend a few minutes thinking about that, our perspective on materialism would surely change.

It is said when someone has a near-death experience, their life flashes before their eyes. Obviously, not one’s entire life, but more like fragments. Small clips from the past. The truly important things. Things like wedding days, the birth of a child, and time spent with family. Chances are, the One True God would be at the forefront of one’s mind as well when faced with eternity on the other side. With all those bits and pieces of meaningful events, the things that truly mattered in one’s life, how many people do you think remember cashing a check as their last thought on earth? I believe Apostle Paul may have had that sort of question in mind when he wrote to the early church in Colossae.

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. (Col. 3:1–4 NIV)

The book of Colossians has a consistent theme of transformation, of being changed by Jesus. Paul is encouraging the people of Colossae to live a transformed life in Christ and instructing them on how to do so. In the above passage, Paul explains in order to live the transformed life, they need to set their minds on things above, not on early things. We could make an exhaustive list of the earthly things we spend time thinking about. Some of which we would consider being bad things. Items that are not emotionally, spiritually, or physically healthy. But there would also be numerous things on that list we would consider good. Things like relationships and personal goals. Of all the items we could compile on an earthly things list, whether we view them as good things, bad things, or indifferent, they all have one thing in common. They won’t last forever. We all understand that, but it can be extremely difficult not to focus on the things right in front of us. After all, those are the things that are affecting us right now.

But when we get to that point between earthly and heavenly, when we come to the place where our physical life ends and our spiritual life begins, what will be important to us there? When we reach that place, I promise you, we won’t look back on our experiences with regret over not having enough money. We won’t regret not driving that new car or not having that nicer home. If we do have regrets, they will concern the things that are truly important. Abraham Lincoln once said, In the end, it is not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years. Randy Travis sang, It’s not what you take when you leave this world behind you. It’s what you leave behind you when you go. In the end, it’s the things of life not connected to finances that are important. Those are the pieces of life that make life worth living. So then, why do we treat money as one of, if not the most, important things in our life?

Life is about priorities. Whatever or whomever it is that we place as our number one priority is what’s most important to us. Not might be—is. Sometimes we lie to ourselves about our priorities. We may say God is the most important thing to us, but our lifestyle may not reflect it. We may say family is priority one, but we spend the majority of our time away from them. The truth is, whatever or whomever it is that consumes your thoughts is what’s most important. We may honestly want God to be the most essential priority in our lives, but if He isn’t at the forefront of our mind and thoughts, then how could He be?

If everyone jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge, would you?—Becky Van Vleet (and many others).

My grandmother used to ask me this question from time to time, and it would drive me crazy! I would tell her, Mom Beck, that makes absolutely no sense! Why would any of my friends jump off the Brooklyn Bridge? We’re in Tennessee! Back then, I couldn’t see the validity of the argument. Years later, I became a parent, and voila, it made perfect sense. Why would you choose to do what it seems everyone else is doing? Why would you want to do what it seems everyone else is doing even if what they are doing is far from respectable or smart? Is because everyone else is doing it a good, logical reason to do anything at all? This is the trap we have fallen into socially; if everyone else is doing it, then it must be okay.

Society has bombarded us with images of the good life. What to wear, what to drive, where to live, how to live, or even what to eat. We are hit with so many of these images each and every day that it can be close to impossible for those types of thoughts not to dominate our minds. It changes the way we think. It changes the way we live. It even changes the way we teach our kids. Let me give you a perfect example: college. We teach our kids the necessity of going to college. Why? Well, let’s break that down, shall we? If you don’t go to college, you won’t have that piece of paper that states you are, in fact, a graduate of a higher learning institution. If you don’t have that piece of paper, you won’t be able to get a good job. If you don’t get a good job, you won’t make enough money. We are lying to ourselves if we think money isn’t the number one factor in the necessity of college. But there are adverse effects of this belief.

An unforeseen by-product of this is affecting our kid’s relationships. The average age of first-time marriage in America is now almost twenty-nine versus twenty-one in the 1950s.³ Simply put, we were not created to wait until our thirties to marry. We were designed with needs that specifically go hand in hand with marriage. Understand me, I am not suggesting that teens should marry just for the sexual relationship. Sex is not dirty or nasty. Sex was designed and created by God Almighty. But, as with everything He creates, there is a time and a place. Sex is for a man and a woman who are married to each other. Anything else is not acceptable to God no matter what society finds appropriate. We are now, unintendedly, pushing our kids into sexual immorality by insisting they finish college, find a good job, and get established before committing to marriage. Ultimately, all in the name of money. Which is ironic, because our kids are now starting their marriages at thirty in much more debt (via school loans) than they would have if they married at eighteen!

Please don’t misunderstand me. There is absolutely nothing wrong with college in and of itself. I went to college. But we seem to be living in a time when companies are looking for that piece of paper, whether it has anything to do with the job or not, before making a hire. That, my friends, is a joke. How could a college degree in art history make someone more qualified to work as a secretary in a law firm than a high school degree? There are so many people now graduating with college diplomas that someone who is not scared to work with their hands would be much better off going to trade school. If you learn a trade, no matter how far technically advanced this world becomes, a trade is always in demand. But, for some reason, working with your hands seems to be looked down upon. We are told to set our sights higher than that. To think about all the money, we could make doing this or that. To concentrate on the things of this world. But Paul told us to focus on the opposite.

Setting our mind on things above doesn’t mean we sit around all day with our head in our hands thinking, I wonder what heaven will be like? It means we are thinking about our future, the priceless things, in every choice we make. Because when we reach the point when we are standing face-to-face with Jesus, every decision we have ever made will bring either reward or regret. We will either be glad that we made decisions based on the things that have real value or we will regret the time we wasted focusing on the here and now. The truth is, most of us do focus on the here and now. It is what society has trained us to do. Even so, when we think about the future, it’s usually finically driven. How am I going to retire? What should I invest in? How will I pay for college? Those aren’t bad things to think about. We will even spend some time on these subjects in a future chapter. But how important are these things to you? For this book to change anything, you have to be brutally honest with yourself here. How important is money to you? Not to society, not to your spouse, not to your family—to you.

We need to come to a point where we can go all Dr. Phil and get real with ourselves. When we try to justify an excuse as a reason, we are lying to ourselves. That isn’t the real reason behind our financial decision; it’s just something we have come up with to justify the decision itself. In the book of Jerimiah, he says that the human heart is the most deceitful of all things (Jer. 17:9). Most means greatest, as in greater than any other, and deceitful means misleading. That means that our heart is the greatest misleader in our life. Our heart doesn’t merely lie to us; it deceives us. It tricks us. It makes us believe our own lies. We have to come to a point where we are painfully honest with ourselves. In Andy Stanley’s book The Principle of the Path: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be (which is a great read, I highly recommend it), he states,

Telling ourselves the truth is liberating, but it can be terrifying…When you are willing to come clean with yourself about the uncomfortable truth behind your choices, you’re on the verge of freedom. We can never be free as long as we’re in the habit of lying to ourselves about the (real) reasons behind the choices we make and the paths we take. Telling yourself the truth will free you to move from where you are to where you want and need to be.⁴

So, honestly, why do you view money the way you do? Why do you give what you give or don’t give what you don’t give? Why did you pick up this book? Where is money on your priority list? The truth is, if it’s priority one, it has become an idol. A replacement for the One True God. Plain and simple. None of us like to look at it that way. Most of us will make excuses for our perspective on money. Few of us will be willing to even attempt to be completely honest with ourselves. That can prove to be a fatal mistake on our part because Jesus told us plainly, you cannot serve two masters; you will grow to love one and despise the other.

As we move forward in this book, I will encourage you to be totally and painfully honest with yourself on your personal priority list. If you’re not, you may as well stop reading now. Nothing I can say or write will change your opinion. Nothing the scriptures say will change your opinion either. As long as you lie to yourself about