VIEWPOINT with Chuck Crismier
WHOLE HEART FINANCES
(upbeat music) This is Viewpoint with Attorney and Author Chuck Chris Meyer. Viewpoint is a one hour open line talk show confronting the issues of America's heart and home. To express your Viewpoint, please call 804-754- 1988. That's 804-754-988. And now with today's edition of Viewpoint, here is Chuck Chris Meyer. - A lawyer came to Jesus one day and asked him what the greatest commandment was. And Jesus responded, well, it's to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. And the second is like I did it, you should love your neighbor as yourself. On these two, he said, "Hang all the law and the prophets." Notice the word all, all the law and the prophets. In other words, everything that was said from Genesis on through the entirety of the Old Testament, the Tanakh, Jesus said it all hinges on those two commandments. So if we follow two commandments, does that make us legalists? Or was Jesus really talking about the heart? Well, that was tested again by a big time businessman. A young big time businessman came to Jesus and he had a yearning to follow the Lord. He wanted to get on board with Jesus. He could see that this was really a ministry of truth. And so he asked Jesus, well, what must I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said, well, keep the commandments. And the young man said, I have kept the commandments from my youth up. And Jesus said, yes, he didn't even quibble with the guy. He said, yes, but there's one thing that you lack, go and sell what you have and give to the poor. And the Bible says the young man turned away sorrowfully. The very yearning of his heart was overcome by the yearning for his stuff. Question, does the yearning for stuff overcome the yearning of your heart? Just ask it and we're talking with Christians here. 99% of those who are listening to this program claim to be born again, Bible believing Christians, but the question is how Christian are we when it comes to money? The Apostle Paul said that the love of money is the root of all evil. Wow, the love of money. So people will say, see, the problem is not the money. The problem is my love. It's my attitude toward money. Well, there's a lot of truth in that too. But then they justify doing whatever they want with the money and don't seem to demonstrate much love through the money. You see the problem that we have, we are very complex people. We're made in the image of God, but it's been distorted. And one of the areas in which that distortion takes place and is manifested very complexly is in the issue of money and finances. So today on Viewport, Viewpoint, we have a very special guest who is joining us from Southern California. Now you wonder whether anybody from Southern California could possibly speak coherently to us concerning money because they're in debt in California beyond almost anything anywhere in the country. How in the world could a governor from California ever become a candidate for the United States presidency? On the other hand, our guest today is coming from Biola University. He is a professor there. His name is Shane Anetti and he is joining us with his book, Whole Heart Finances. He says there's a Jesus center guide to managing your money with joy. Shane is good to have you on the program. - Yeah, thanks so much for having me. - And did I pronounce your name correctly? - You know, I'm not consistent in how I pronounce my name. So everything's mostly correct, but in general, I'd just say you're not. - You're not okay. - Yeah. - All right, all right, well, that's good. Now, you open your book by saying you love the game of the monopoly, but you hate the game of the monopoly. Well, I love the game of the monopoly, but I haven't played the game of the monopoly for several years now, at least. And I guess I wasn't always concerned about how long the game lasted. I was more concerned about the mechanics of the game, but there's a sense in which life is kind of like the game of monopoly, isn't it? - Yeah. - How is that? - It's a bit, whenever you're given a responsibility, so we all are given some resources, given some money, and then we're meant to go out and do something with it. And we have to make decisions. And in the game of the monopoly, we're given this monopoly money, but it needs to serve a purpose. We need to make decisions. And then there's other people around us, and there's the scarcity of resources. And so the game of monopoly mirrors a lot of people's financial experiences just because you feel like you're in competition with each other, you feel like there's not enough. You feel like there's always things around the corner, like go to jail card, you know. (laughing) - Oh boy, I just told my little dog to go to jail last night because he was barking too much and biting us a little puppy dog. But you're talking about a different kind of jail, the financial jail. And you know what I like about monopoly is, as you said, it mimics many, in many respects, life itself and our financial world. And there's risk in monopoly, even though there's a lot of chance, there's also a lot of intentionalized choices that have to be made just like in our own lives. There's risk and then there's choice. And we have a combination of the two and overarching all of that, I think is exactly the spirit of your book. Are we really in life wholeheartedly for Jesus? - Yeah. And in general with any board game, it's good to be more proactive than passive. You have to kind of look to see what's the aim of the game and what do I want out of this game? And I think the people who live life and they don't actually think about the big picture about what's the end goal, they end up kind of getting knocked down and others kind of have their way. And so I think in the same way as a Christian with money, we need to kind of take a step back and see, why do we have this money, what's the purpose? And in the end, the more proactive we are, the more we're able to kind of do more of what we want to do. And then if we seek who we are in Christ, then we're gonna do things that are more aligned to his heart. - It's interesting, Monopoly is the game that normally comes to people's minds, but there was another game that came out in the late 1970s and early 1980s called Acquire. And it was like Monopoly intensified. It was an amazing game, I love the game, but the interesting thing is that every time I have felt that I was setting my mind on finances, things went south. When I tried to make certain kinds of investments, things went south. The soft stock market did not favor me well. And then came 1987, Black Monday. You're probably not aware of Black Monday, but Black Monday was a very devastating time in America and about a third of all of America's wealth disappeared in one day, including all my investments. (laughing) I had to learn the hard way, you know what? I'm gonna have to trust Jesus. I can't trust the stock market. I can't trust any of these intermediary devices. Somehow I'm gonna have to completely trust the Lord, even in my finances. That's what we wanna talk about here for the balance of the program for him. Where's our trust? We'll be back. Once upon a time, children couldn't pray and read their Bibles in school. Divorces were practically unknown as was child abuse. In our once great America, virginity and chastity were popular virtues and homosexuality was an abomination. So what happened in just one generation? Hi, I'm Chuck Chrismeyer and I urge you to join me daily on viewpoint where we discuss the most challenging issues, touching our hearts and homes. Could America's moral slide relate to the fourth commandment? Listen to viewpoint on this radio station or anytime at saveus.org. (upbeat music) Study after study confirms that Americans consider money their top source of anxiety. Apparently Bill Clinton, the politician and president, thought so too, because he said that all of America's politics can be wrapped into one phrase. It's the economy, stupid. And it appears that that's exactly how people think. That's exactly if you listen to the pundits, the politicians, yes, you talk about the Southern border, you talk about this, you talk about that issue, but ultimately they come back, it's the economy stupid. It's all about money. What do you say about that, Shane, as a godly professor there in Southern California? What do you say about that attitude? I mean, it's hard to avoid everything about our needs for shelter, for clothing, for food, for security. They have a real strong financial aspect to it. No, it would be hard to avoid feeling like kind of money is just very, very important. And Jesus, he knew that. He said, you know, these are important things. I know that you want them, but seek for my kingdom and you'll get these things, you know, in tow. I think that's the most important, one of the most important verses in the Bible, Matthew 633, but seek ye first, the kingdom of God, and his righteousness. That's what people miss. They want to seek the kingdom, but they don't want to seek righteousness. And when we're dealing with money, it has everything to do with righteousness, doesn't it? Yeah, with money, it's a window into our heart into what we truly love, you know, where our heart is, there are riches are. And so if material things and wealth is our true desire, then we have a disordered telos, as Aristotle would say, or as Augustine would say. And when you kind of are pursuing and it could be subconsciously, but if these are the things, these are the ends for you, is to have wealth, then that is a shallow, very small thing to desire, and that actually becomes a weight that pulls you down. That's because wealth has you then, and you don't have wealth. Exactly, yeah. It owns you. Yeah, yeah. That also goes to the attitudes of our hearts. You know, so many people think in terms of righteousness, just as a matter of doing a good thing, a right thing and not doing a bad thing. But Jesus is as much concerned about the attitudes that we have, or the reasons why we do or don't do things. And I think that's what escapes us so much. It's our attitudes. Attitudes are very important. I think that's the reason why right there in Matthew chapter five, we have that great message from Jesus on the Mount of the Attitudes called, the be attitudes or the attitudes of being. And if we don't get our attitudes right with regard to the Lord and the Kingdom of God, none of the rest of it is going to work no matter what kind of machinations, plans that we put together, they're all going to fail, I think. Yeah. Okay, now you've got two young kids, seven and nine. Is that right? Yep. And each one of them has a different attitude toward money. Already. What are the difference of attitudes? So Sage, my nine year old, immediately, whenever you give her a gift, or whenever she received something of value, she would not want to open it. And she would actually want to just kind of take it and then store it away, kind of like a squirrel or a chipmunk would kind of take their nuts. And so she never really wanted to consume, she always wanted to make things last as long as possible. And that's exactly my natural temperament. And my son, who is stylist and he's seven, he's someone that's going to look at things and immediately wanted to enjoy them, consume them. He's kind of a more of a natural spender. If you give him something, he's going to seek out to enjoy that in that moment. Well, it's interesting because the Bible doesn't put down a person that can enjoy the fruits of their labors, which is money oftentimes, but it doesn't want us to put our trust there. One of the premier messages that Jesus gives is don't trust your money. Don't trust anything outside of me. I'm the only one that you can trust. And if you don't trust me, you're in deep trouble. I think that's where we are today. We've got a trust problem. - Yeah, I think we're looking at the provision and not the provider and we're getting this sense of anxiety because we don't want trust, which requires not having control. And so we don't really know who Christ is. We don't know that he's this good shepherd, this good father. And we also think Christ is a bit separate from our material lives. We think he's just spiritual and he's not really concerned about our physical lives. And so he's actually just a person that wants to look at our material needs and desires and kind of shame us in them. And so everyone kind of assumes that Jesus is just eager and waiting to ask the question of us or make the command of us to sell everything and follow him. And they just kind of assume that's exactly Jesus's heart posture for all people. And they also forget that he has a material body still and he ascended into heaven and kind of permanently made the physical life of eating and needing shelter and having physical bodies a permanent part of our eternal life. And so he can sympathize, empathize. He can kind of understand these needs we have and this desire for provision and we can actually include him. And it's a great opportunity to have him be a part of our life, to show him what we care about and to have him kind of guide us through the process of being provided for. And so Jesus made it very plain that if we put our trust in stuff, if we put our trust in mammon, as the Bible talks about, we're going to be in deep trouble. And money doesn't satisfy. Jesus said that if you gain the whole world and lose your soul, what have you gained? Absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing. You give a couple of illustrations in your book and we're still setting the stage with our jury today. You could say our listeners here today. It's an attitudinal stage painting the bigger picture in which we're going to introduce so many of the things that you talk about in your book about how we can best deal with the issue of money in our lives, in our practical lives. A prominent money talk show host once received a phone call from a school bus driver who had diligently performed every good financial behavior. And now she had a net worth of a million dollars. A school bus driver had a net worth of a million dollars. So as the talk show host talked with her, her voice quivered over the radio as she whispered, and I'm terrified about not having enough. A school bus driver terrified that a million dollars was not enough. Well, let's contrast that with the next. A survey of 165 super rich households, those with over $25 million found very disturbing results. And here they are. The respondents turned out to be generally dissatisfied lot, whose money was contributed to deep anxieties involving love, work, and family. Indeed, they are frequently dissatisfied even with their sizable fortunes. Most of them still do not consider themselves financially secure. And for that, they say they would require an average one quarter more wealth than they currently possess. One respondent, the heir to an enormous fortune, says that what matters most to him is his Christianity. And that his greatest aspiration is to love the Lord, my family, and my friends. But he also reported that he wouldn't feel financially secure until he had at least a billion dollars in the bank. My goodness. My goodness. Well, that puts a contrast in there. Even those who don't seem to have as much problem, maybe even, well, as much problem as the rich with money. Both the rich and the poor worry about money. And doesn't Jesus warn us about being worry warts over money? He does. And to me, this is a matter of-- it's a sign that we're alone, that we're bearing full financial responsibility. And as Christians, we were never meant to bear that. It's too heavy. And so if we don't-- we're in Christ, so we have this relationship with him. And it'd be like if I married my wife, and then on our first day as a married couple, I said, let's talk about everything. But money is completely separate. We can't talk about money. Money is something that will never be a part of our relationship. That creates an alienation and creates a separation that causes incredible anxiety. So I think for our rich nation, the richest we've ever been, but we've been the most worried about money we've ever been. And I think that points towards the spiritual alienation, towards the fact that we're just all alone trying to grasp in the darkness, trying to figure out, is there some way I can feel in control, some way I can feel secure, and you can't be secure without Christ. Like you can't be feeling, having that feeling if you can't get that anywhere other than in the arms of the Father. So the heart of the matter is always the heart. And that's why I like the title of your book, Whole Heart Finances. And here's the book, Friends. It contains all kinds of practical things. We're not going to be able to get into them all here today. But you're going to know that there's a lot in this book for you to consider. How can tracking your expenses help grow your relationship with the Lord? What's the best way to plan for irregular expenses? Should you have a credit card? Does it matter if your credit score is low? Is it financially savvy to lease a car? Should you invest in the stock market? And if so, in what way? How could you use the tools of saving and investing to maximize generous giving? Well, all of that here today on viewpoint, if we had time to get into it, but it's in the book, Whole Heart Finances. A Jesus-centered guide to managing your money with joy. Not with stress, but with joy. $20, we'll put it in your hands. It's on our website, saveus.org. Saveus.org. You can call us at 1-800-SAVEUSA, 1-800-SAVEUSA, or write to us at Save America Ministries. P.O. Box 70879, Richmond, Virginia. Two, three, two, five, five. Writing a check at $5 for postage and handling. And we'll get this very helpful, and perhaps provocative book in your hands. And I do say provocative because our guest today has some very interesting ways of talking about money. But before we get into that, Shane, you were a professor there at Biola University, Bible Institute of Los Angeles. That's where the name came from, didn't it? Yeah, it was good. It's always a trivia question. You know, what does Biola stand for? And you got it right. And your school, Biola, was always the arch enemy, at least sports-wise, of my alma mater, is this a Pacific University. So you say it's still that way when it comes to sports. Hopefully not that way with regard to the Lord. Exactly. Yeah, I'd say it's friendly rivalry, but occasionally I feel like students take it too far during a basketball game. (laughing) Well, you can imagine the trouble I'm in with when my sister who graduated summa cum laude from Biola, I graduated summa cum laude from Azusa Pacific. So we've got a built-in, I'm not sure you'd call that camaraderie. What would you call that? (laughing) Sibling rivalry, I don't know. Sibling rivalry, there you go. All right, so what are you teaching there at Biola? So I teach all the classes related to money, both the institutional management of money with finance and corporate finance, and then the personal household management of money with financial planning. And so students can take courses that are needed to fulfill the CFP exam, the Certified Financial Planner. Wow. And then they launch out as financial planners, or they take the business degree in finance and launch out as more of a financial analyst. Yeah, my sister got that financial planning thing. So she's done a lot of financial work for herself and others as a result of that. Now, here's the deal. You talk about two Cs in Israel, and I thought this was a great illustration. Two Cs in Israel, the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea. Why do they illustrate the problem of money? You know, sometimes, and this is common, what you'll see in scripture, a lot of things that are really abstract. Jesus and other kind of leaders throughout the history of the church would use a nature analogy to help kind of grasp these kind of abstract concepts. And in the same way with money and the management of money, there's a lot of complexity. And so I wanted to find a natural process in nature to help us kind of grasp both the heart and the head behind what's going on. And so I-- It's a terrific and very simple illustration. Yeah, and so you have these two Cs, and I can talk about after the break, if that's needed. Yeah, that will be necessary, because during the break, nobody's going to listen to it. That's right. He calls it the wisdom of the Sea of Galilee friends. You want to hear this? It's simple, but it's very true. And if you understand it from the heart, it'll change your life. We'll be right back. There is so much more about Chuck Chris Meyer and Save America Ministries on our website, saveus.org. For example, on the front page are two great videos. First, an interview and discussion of Chuck's book Out of Egypt. Also, a great TV interview with Chuck regarding his book, Seduction of the Saints. Much more videos, a Four Pastors Only section, and also you can view Chuck's weekly teachings. All at his website, saveus.org. That's saveus.org. Also on Chuck's website, listen to Chuck's viewpoint broadcast. Listen to the archives. Maybe you missed a program, check it out at saveus.org. Also, there are some great resources, hospitality information, also information about marriage, divorce, and remarriage, newsletters, articles, prophecy, prayer, and revival information. All at saveus.org. (upbeat music) - Again, I welcome you back to viewpoint. Our viewpoint concerning money determines destiny. It really does. It's very, very important. So our special guest today, Shane Annette, is going to give us this analogy, this very simple analogy taken from the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea right there in Israel. Go for it. - So the Jordan River, it feeds both seas. And really, these are actually lakes, but the Hebrew didn't have a word for lake. So they called it the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea. And so you have this fresh, really healthy river flowing into the Sea of Galilee. And then you have the same exact water source of the Jordan River flowing into the Dead Sea. And so two bodies of water receiving the same fresh, healthy water source, and yet one body of water is completely dead. And the other is alive and well. - Okay, so very simply make the application. - The only real difference, and there's a few differences, but the primary difference is the Sea of Galilee has an outflow, though it has an outlet. It's able to take what it's receiving and pass it along. And so it doesn't view the resources it's receiving as fully its own, but it wants to pass it along. And the Dead Sea, it continually takes and takes and takes and it doesn't have an outflow. And that causes a buildup of salt, which then kills all living things within it. - Exactly, it almost killed my eyes a number of years ago when I tried to do a little swim out there. You sure don't wanna duck your head in the Dead Sea because while you can float right there very easily with all that salt, you don't want your eyes to be stung out of their head, out of your head. So there's a problem with the Dead Sea. I was just reading about it today. It's getting deader and deader. And the Sea of Galilee, now called Lake Keneret, is alive and well. And what I frame it another way. And that is, and using the same basic analogy, God does not intend for our lives to be a reservoir. Rather, He intends for our lives to be a kingdom conduit. In other words, there's to be a flow out. And isn't it interesting? Jesus talked about rivers of living water, but He also talked about a well-springing up with water. So the well of water becomes the life-giving to us. But now what's supposed to happen through the power of the Holy Spirit is to become rivers of living water flowing out from us. So no matter where you look at the scripture, this whole idea of stagnancy versus flow is conveyed. And I think a lot of people don't quite grasp that because their Christianity is what I would call business as usual. Go to church on Sunday or Saturday or whenever you're going to church and you did your thing, and now the rest is mine. Whatever happened to time, talent, or treasure? I thought that was the whole of what God gave us. - And there needs to be what we receive. The posture should be to imitate and then pass it along. And that's kind of God's intention was never to receive and just that's it, but to imitate, to show the world what God's like through us, being his vice-regent. And so a flow is very important. And another good analogy is an open hand can keep receiving, whereas a closed hand is no longer usable to receive. - And a closed hand is always seen as threatening. - An old hand, my wife and I wrote a book years ago. The inspiration came right there in California, Southern California, called The Power of Hospitality. The subtitle of that book is an open heart, open hand and open home will change your world. Well, you can't have a heart of hospitality if you don't see your life as a kingdom conduit as opposed to a kingdom reservoir. And when the Lord began to reveal to me, what hospitality was really all about, which my wife had yearned that I understood, which I did not understand for the first seven years of our marriage, when he began to reveal to me, everything changed with regard to how we used money. - And I like the Sea of Galilee, because it shows that our goal is to excel in our outflow. It's not to get depleted to where we no longer have our resources. And it lets us see that tension, 'cause often people assume, oh, you're asking me to take a vow of poverty. And they also kind of make the hidden presumption that there's a spirituality in poverty. But money is not a lever where more of it means less spiritual-ness, and less of it means more spiritual-ness. It's kind of like, it's the heart. And so in the end, Paul, when he's talking to the Corinthian church, he's saying, the aim should be that you excel in this grace of giving, and that's gonna look different for everyone. And so using the nature analogy, we just try and figure out, given the flow that's coming into our lives, how do we maximize the outflow while kind of, and we have a picture of sustainability in that, not just a one-time outflow. And so then we can use the tools of financial planning and some of the neat tools of spending plans and, you know, a picture of an investing and run rate at calculations, all these kind of things, and that can actually help us create a higher outflow that's sustainable over our whole lifetime. - Well, you obviously can't give what you don't have. And there are people who get caught up in emotional fundraising efforts, yes, in ministry and in our churches, who will go out and borrow large sums of money in order to build a church or do this, that or the other. I have a concern about that kind of thinking. We should give out of that which God has given us. And we have to be very careful because we're called to be stewards. Most are not called to give it all away. In fact, that's not really what God had in mind for that rich young ruler. The issue was not that Jesus wanted him to give everything away. It was that he held too precious that was in his hand. You agree with that? - Yeah, yeah, I definitely agree with that. And there's so many case studies in the Bible of Jesus and how he interacted with rich folks and, you know, the tax collector. He was just said, you know, the kingdom of God has come because the kids said, I'll give half. He didn't say all. And then Lydia, you know, was supporting the ministry and wasn't able to kind of, and she wasn't called to no longer have wealth or possessions. And so it seems like it's a case by case. And again, I always go back to Paul 'cause I feel like in second Corinthians eight and nine, he really laid out a framework for how each, how we can adapt to kind of a theology around our giving. And he's like, this isn't a command, man. I'm not gonna create a law here, but the heart behind it should be that you're a benefit if you excel. Not just give, but excel in giving and do a really good job to kind of seek and make it something you have a serious goal of yours. - Well, the scripture says it's more blessed to give than to receive, which means this outflow, this outflow is where the blessing comes. It's not in hoarding, grabbing on to everything and holding it tight in your fisted hand, but it's the outflow. And that is where the spirit of the Lord is because the spirit of the Lord is, he gave, he sent his son in the fullness of time to give the utmost to us that we might also be conformed to the image of his son and give and give and give. All right, I think that's the spirit of your book, whole heart finances. Now, getting into some specifics, everybody's at a different place. Some people have salaries, some people have commissions, some people work on an hourly basis. How are each of these supposed to respond to being a good steward? - I think one, I think people have a limited imagination about how giving can be. And so my book walks through the fact that there's actually eight or nine different giving systems. The different ways that you can respond to God's generosity with a generosity of your own. I think people need to recognize that everyone's made different. And there might be a way that God made you that would make you more excited to be generous if you just changed kind of the way that you're giving. And so, most people only think of kind of a first fruit, tight percentage. Which I think should be kind of like the foundation of any cushion. 'Cause foundationally we're receiving and so we should kind of give off of what we're receiving. - Well, absolutely. But then that brings another problem. And that is a lot of people will interpret that as meaning, well, the tithe is not for today. We're not called to tithe because that's legalistic. Let me share my own experience and thought on that. And I understand where they're coming from, but the problem with that thinking is it's coming from a mind that's legalistic. But what if your mind isn't legalistic? What if you realize, look, God has, he owns it all. He owns it all and I'm a steward of what he owns. Therefore, I am not gonna get caught in the vice grip of thinking that I'm an owner. I'm going to release back to the Lord voluntarily and with a joyful heart, a minimum of 1/10 of my income. I'm gonna release it back to him so that I am not getting caught up in the vice grip of ownership and trusting it. We have exactly the same issue with regard to the Sabbath. God said, I want 1/7 of your time. He wants 1/10 of the money, minimum, and 1/7 of the time, minimum. Why? Because he doesn't want us to think that it's all ours. He wants us to realize that whatever we have in our possession is owned by him anyway. Time, talent, and treasure. And so we release it back to him. That has been my attitude since I was probably 12 years old. And I have tied ever since my wife and I have tied for 58 years during our marriage. And one of the things that always excited me, particularly when I was practicing law, and sometimes I would have a big case that would come in and I was so thrilled to be able to write a tithe check that was so far beyond anything that I thought could ever be possible. I was thrilled to do it. And even beyond that, to give where necessary. I think the problem with the tithe, as with the Sabbath, is an attitude of our heart. I'll give you an opportunity to respond after this break. Shane, Annette, joining us here on Youth Point with us with Whole Heart Sciences. $20 on our website, saveus.org, a great book. - Have you ever considered what the early church was like? Many people are developing a heart belonging for a greater fulfillment in our practices as Christians. A recent study showed 53,000 people a week are leaving the back door of America's churches in frustration. What is going on? Why has there not been even a 1% gain among followers of Christ in the last 25 years? Could it be that God is seeking to restore first century Christianity for the 21st century? Jesus said, I'll build my church. Is Christ by His spirit stirring to prepare the church for the 21st century? The early church prayed together and broke bread from house to house. They were family and it was said by all who observed, behold how they loved one another. Incredible. But the same can be found right now. Go to saveus.org and click sell church. We can revive first century Christianity for the 21st century. It's about people, not programs. It's about a body, not a building. That's saveus.org, click sell church. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) How are we to view these issues about money? You see, our viewpoint is what matters. The attitudes of our heart are what matters. And you can have, in fact, if you look at the statistics for the past 15, 20 years, among evangelical Christians, only about 4% tithe, among mainline Christians about 2%. How about the rest of the country, in the richest country in the world, in this prosperous time, no matter what you say about the economy, what's the giving under 2% per person? What does that tell us about our attitudes? Shane? Yeah, it says that we think we have to kind of like, we've entered into a heart of scarcity, where we're all on our own. We have to manage things we can't afford to give 'cause that would mean we wouldn't be able to be taken care of. What it also means, we think we own it all. Yeah. And I'll release just a little bit here and there so that people won't think I'm a total scoundrel. Yeah, so yeah, it basically is this idea that this is my money, it's a tax. Oh, this is a voluntary tax. Well, I'd rather pay less tax than more tax. So let me kind of, and the attitude really is, what's the least amount I can give and still get away with it? Exactly, or still please God, for instance, the whole question, and we're not gonna answer the question here, but the whole question, will do I tie on the grocer on the net? That one drives me crazy. It drives us crazy because the fundamental issue there is, am I trusting God or not? Do I really believe that God owns it all or not? Am I a trustee or am I an owner? And I tell you, the more I began to realize that seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness was the real goal. Then more and more I was able to trust the Lord and the more I trusted the Lord, the more He provided and the more He would provide, the more I could be a kingdom conduit to the point where the Lord came to us in 1992 and said, "Son, you've been pleading "cause I'm in long enough. "I want you to sell everything you have." Your business, ministry, political investment, everything you have done for 30 years in California, go to a place there in Richmond, Virginia on the birth river of America, the James River, and I'll show you what to do. And we had nothing. Now what do you do? Now what do you do? - Yeah, what I found, so you mentioned time and giving as connected in the Sabbath and our time. I found that to be true. I found that everything operates under the law of sewing and reaping. And it's God's kind of like economy where the more generous we are with these precious things like time and talents and as well as our treasures, the more we end up having. And it's a really strange principle, but with time, I kind of said, all right, I wanna make sure and look at my schedule and I wanna make sure I'm tithing my time. And I wanna do a full Sabbath on Sunday, but I also wanna have every day have a Sabbath with embedded in it. And ever since I made that decision and I spent about two hours a day kind of being unproductive. And I never end the day without having everything completed. And it's this law of sewing and reaping where the more you lean in to kind of being generous with what God's giving you, things that are precious, the more you tend to enter into this abundant mindset and you actually see how much resources are around that God's providing. And if ever I'm kind of feeling anxious about money and feeling like there's not enough, the greatest anecdote is, of course, to gaze upon the Lord, see His promises, but there's also a very practical anecdote and just start giving a little bit more than you're comfortable with. And then you start to just feel a weight and just lift it off of you. And I start to now get my eyes off of the ground and look up towards the father who's just a good father and then I'm like, oh, okay, I'm good. - You know, a lot of people will say, well, if I only had what brother so-and-so has, if I only had a 5,000 square foot house instead of a 2,000 square foot house, I would be on Easy Street and everything would be wonderful, everything would be cool and I'd have no more worries. You know what the problem with that is? The guy that has the 5,000 square foot house has two and a half times more worries than you do because he's got two and a half more times square footage and all the land that goes with it. So we just don't have a very realistic way of looking at things, which means it's not just what is in our possession that matters. It's how that is used is what matters. Some people have relatively little, but in terms of finances, but they have great talent, they have much time and those things can be incredible investments. Somebody might have more financial resources and those are desperately needed because the others that don't have them. And so if we could really see that God has a kingdom economy in all of these respects, maybe we wouldn't be always looking at the grass greener and violate the 10th commandment, thou shalt not covet. And I think our identity is what's key to recognize that we're entered into the relationship of the Trinity being in Christ and having the Holy Spirit in us. And it's like that identity is so affirming and we are given an inheritance that is secure. And so we don't have to, there's a beautiful story of a pastor that gave this story a couple hundred years ago. And he said, there was once a man who was headed towards an estate and he was gonna go from being kind of moderate income to being wealthy and he was in his carriage and he was on his way. And then all of a sudden the carriage broke down about two miles before he got to the estate and how silly would it be for him to spend that whole two miles walking crying over his broken carriage. And I think the same thing is true of us. We've been given this incredible inheritance. If we understand who we are in Christ, it puts us in a perspective about our financial situation. You know, we don't wanna be walking these very few years we have on life crying about anything that's lost because we have a secure kingdom that we get to operate in. And we have a good father who's gonna provide in the meantime, but it may not be exactly what others get. - Speaking of security, trust is an all-time requirement, but it's an end time requirement even to the max because we're gonna find, we're likely to find as persecution rises that it may affect our finances. Then what? - Yeah, I think. - Come on, Mr. Money Maestro. Then what? (laughs) - Yeah, no, I think with an idol, you know something's an idol when it's threatened and you feel this sense of panic and fear. And we're only meant to fear God. So if you have fear as the scripture says, it has to do with punishment and whereas we have a perfect love and whatever it is, it could be a house, it could be our children, it could be if that's threatened, then we will feel this wave of fear. And I think if persecution breaks out and all of a sudden we feel this wave of fear about our bank accounts, then we know that we've been trusting in that and not in the Lord. Well, it is breaking out and that's why my new book, When Persecution Comes Preparing Our Hearts, Preparulous Times, is heading for the printing house as we speak. So (laughs) it's coming and it's coming rapidly, not just in far away lands, but here in the United States of America. Okay, now this matter of debt, and you and I probably should have two hours to have these kinds of conversations, but we don't. So here we go, debt is rising astonishingly. Everybody's talking about it, it's not just the national debt approaching $40 trillion, but it's our personal debt. How about credit cards versus secured debt like buying a house? Quickly. So yeah, I'd say there's two types of debt, there's debt on appreciating assets and debt on depreciating assets. So if you have borrowed to buy something goes up in value over a long period of time, that's a different type of buying decision or debt decision than if you are borrowing to buy something that needs to be replaced 'cause it wears out. So that's consumer debt and card debt. I'd say you should, as a general principle of wisdom, always avoid consumer debt debt that is on a depreciating asset 'cause it puts you in a cycle and it's difficult to get out of it and you have to do a triple payment to get out. You have to pay the interest, repay the loan and save to be able to buy the next item. Well, the national government is facing that as interest rates have gone up and how are they gonna pay back this enormous national debt? And then they're saying, well, we don't have to pay it back, we'll just put more money. Well, the national debt, the nation could do that, but what it does is devalue your money, it's called inflation. So how do we deal with inflation? Well, we're told by silver and gold. Yet the apostles, Peter said silver and gold, have I none, but such as I have give ID. So what are we supposed to do? You know, it would be, it's a hard question. You've given me a very difficult question to address. That's what we do on this program. Yeah, I think as inflation continues to rise, it's reasonably stable right now, but you can kind of move more towards commodities and things that bind things that are at the input of inflation. So commodities shouldn't put more than three or 4% of your assets into such things as gold and silver. And I have a personal illustration of that because back as things were heading into extremely high interest rates in the late 1970s, up to 18 and 20%, I took some money and I purchased a very substantial silver bar. The thing must away three pounds. And I don't remember what I paid for it, but at that time I think it was maybe $3,000 or something like that. So I had that as a hedge against inflation. Well, then came Monday, October 7th and Black Monday. And I'm telling you it was devastating. So then I had to turn around and sell my silver bar in order to make ends meet that I'd lost in the stock market. The problem that I see with silver and gold is, it's just another thing to divert our trust. What say you? - I'd say even, and I think practically it's very difficult to know where to store it. - Exactly. - 'Cause when you get physical bars then you have to kind of trust whoever is storing it and it gets expensive and then people put it in their own house. - And then you have Christians that are in prison today who were in that business and were not faithful with people silver and gold. - Yeah, I think, I mean, the '87 crash was bad but in general the stock market is a pass-through institution for inflation. So if you do buy kind of productive assets that are producing goods and services, usually inflation will get passed along to the consumer. And so the business stays roughly the same and it's profitability. And so overall I just think a stock market portfolio is not a bad way to hedge for inflation. If you're very careful about it and realize that it's about time and if you're not in it for time, then you increase your risk, do you not? - Yeah, the stock market is something you engage in over a 10 to 30 year period. You need to be able to write out a cycle and our business cycles are gonna happen because of our monetary policy as well as just the natural contractions and expansions that occur with. And so if you just think about the stock market as a short-term solution to gain more money, you most likely will not time it correct or you'll either be lucky or unlucky. But if you think of it as an owner that wants to patiently and diligently invest in the US economy over a long period of time, then you should, it should be a sound investment. - Well, this is spring and Jesus said, look, here's how you deal with it. You plant your seed and you don't go out and pull it up every other day to see if it's growing. - Yep, that's good advice. - There you go. All right, whole heart finances. Friends, we've just barely covered the surface of this problem, this issue. I hope you'll get a copy of the book. It'll be very helpful to you. $20 on our website, save us.org. Call us 1-800-SAVE-USA, write to us and save American ministries. P.O. Box 70879, Richmond, Virginia, 2, 3, 2, 5, 5, ready to check, add $5 for postage and hamming. Time does money, they say. So, how are you using your time? Be back with you tomorrow, Billie. - You've been listening to Viewpoint with Chuck Chrismeyer. Viewpoint is supported by the faithful gifts of our listeners. Let me urge you to become a partner with Chuck as a voice to the church declaring vision for the nation. Join us again next time on Viewpoint as we confront the issues of America's heart and home. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) You [BLANK_AUDIO]