E-mail
Print
RSS
G-bookmarks
Live
TechnoratiHere’s a short quiz to help determine your financial health. Take the quiz, but don’t stop there. Read on for five things you can do NOW to improve your financial health.
1. Do you argue about money with those closest to you? Yes ____ No ____
2. Are you behind on your mortgage, car or card payments? Yes ___ No ___
3. Do you pay one credit card with another? Yes ___ No ___
4. Are Creditors calling? Yes ___ No ___
5. Are you considering consolidation loans, second jobs, second mortgages or bankruptcy? Yes ___ No ___
6. Are you living paycheck to paycheck? Yes ___ No ___
7. Do you have an emergency fund, retirement savings and the right kinds of insurance? Yes ___ No ___
If you answered “Yes” to any of the first six questions or “No” to question seven, the first thing you need to know is that you are not alone. You, like most people, will likely face some kind of financial crisis at some time in your life. Your “time” might be right now. If it is, your crisis is probably due to a personal or family illness, the loss of a job, or overspending. (Are we hitting close to home? If so, please read on.)
The second thing you MUST UNDERSTAND is that you can overcome your current financial crisis, no matter what is the cause. Your financial situation does not have to go from bad to worse.
You have five very realistic options. We’ll look at the first one now and the remaining four the next four times we get together.
Tip #1: Understand why it’s important to manage your money God’s way—we’ll suggest a great resource.
TIP #2: Develop a personal financial recovery plan—you’ll learn how. We’ll point you to some great resources.
TIP #3: Credit Counseling from a reputable organization—you’ll learn what this is and how to keep from being scammed.
TIP #4: Debt consolidation—you’ll learn what this is and the pros and cons.
TIP #5: Bankruptcy—facts you need to know about the new bankruptcy law.
Are you ready? Onward with TIP #1: You MUST
Understand why it’s important to manage your money God’s way.
Let me ask you a question: How would you know if something is important to God? Well, one way is to see if He talks about it in His Word. If it’s there, it’s important.
Another question: How would you know if something is extra ordinarily important to God? The answer: If He covers it more than once or in different ways.
You need to know that God has quite a lot to say about money. Consider these FACTS:
1. There are about 500 verses on prayer and a little less than 500 verses on faith, yet over 700
verses that deal directly with money, and another two thousand that deal with how you are to handle all the material areas of your life.
2. Two-thirds of the parables deal with money.
3. The Bible has more to say about money than heaven and hell combined.
4. Even more to say about money than salvation.
5. As the matter of fact, the Bible has more to say about money than any other single subject…except love.
You can see that money is an important subject to God and therefore ought to be important for you and for you to understand His thoughts and directions. You ought to sit up and pay attention and remember that in 2 Timothy 3:16 you are told “All scripture is God breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.”
All scripture is God breathed and USEFUL. His Word has a purpose. He gives you His Word for a reason. That reason is to begin to put it into use in your life--to identify and act on some personal applications. You need to first look to God’s Word, and then begin to put His Word into practice, begin to live it. Continue »
