Building wealth as a Christian
At Hope Central a few weeks ago, Pastor Moore, of Hope Chapel Kaneohe Bay, spoke at a Life After Debt seminar. He explained that many of us Christians have a ‘poverty is humility’ mentality that isn’t right. God wants us to prosper and to use our wealth to bless others. He recommended many secular publications, such as Kiplingers and Money magazine, for learning how to grow wealth.
I bought Moore’s book,Your Money, to better understand how to grow wealth in a Christian way. Moore quotes John Wesley, the early leader of the Methodist movement, “Get all you can, save all you can, and give all you can.”
We live in a fallen world and even though we are not of it, we still have to make a living in it and save for the future (kid’s college, retirement, etc). We have to use the means available to us that we feel led by God to use. We will be held accountable for how we use the gifts that the Lord has given us. We shouldn’t reject the blessings, gifts or opportunities the Lord gives us, but I still wonder where to draw the line. For example, if I invest in real estate for profit doesn’t that raise prices and hurt families (especially here in Hawaii)?
The first place to start is tithing. God will bless you abundantly when you tithe: “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it” (Mal 3:10). This verse reminds me of a t-shirt my brother had as a kid that said “Try it You’ll like it!”
Moore in his book, Your Money, explains, “God enlarged upon his message through Malachi by saying, ‘Try it! Let me prove it to you!’ God wanted the people to put Him to the test, to prove whether the promise proved true. This is the only place in the Bible where God invites us to test Him. So if your not tithing now, why not try it?” Moore is confident that, “At the end of six months you will want to continue tithing.” “It’s easy to know where to tithe: it is where we’re spiritually fed, week in and out.”
