UNCOVER THE TRUTH ABOUT MONEY
Join us this week as we delve into a thought-provoking topic that often stirs curiosity among believers: What Does God Think About Wealth?
In this episode, we dive deep into the scriptures and explore God’s perspective on wealth, addressing the misconceptions and uncovering the truths that shape our understanding. Whether you’re seeking wisdom for personal financial decisions or looking to align your values with God’s plan for abundance, this episode offers practical guidance and a fresh perspective on the role of wealth in our lives as Christians.
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It doesn’t have to do with how much you have, it has to do with do you love money or do you love God? A lot of God’s people you know, throughout the Old Testament were people of great wealth and in that way weren’t rebuked for that, right? And so many of the people saw that as God’s blessing upon them. But I think all that goes back to the initial command that God gave the Israelites, right? That they were to be a people that were blessed to become a blessing. And so, if my life is, is, if my view on my life is I’m a conduit, I’m a conduit of blessing. Well, whatever the capital you have in your life, do you see it as a possession or do you see it as something? No, I’m a conduit of blessing for whatever God has given me.
Tagline: Created on purpose and for purpose.
Hey, we’re back with a brand new episode of the Dear Earlewine podcast. Dear Earlewine, your host, thanks for downloading this episode. Wherever you download your episodes, whether you’re an audio-only person over on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get it, or you’re right here on YouTube watching every minute. Or if you didn’t know we had either or, you can go and subscribe right now. And, hey, we are in a summer series right now. It’s 2023. You might be listening to this in 2025, I don’t know. But we reached out to you and said, listen, let’s do a frequently asked question series this summer just to get some feedback from you. What are you thinking about? What questions do you have? And can we meet you right where you’re thinking, right, where you’re dreaming, maybe where you are confused. And so we, we, we put out the idea of this being the frequently asked questions as we got the feedback, as we, you know, poured through all the, the responses.
We didn’t really get a frequently asked question. We just got asked questions, . And so we’re gonna spend this summer and just answer your questions that came in. And we’re gonna try to get these boom right to the point. It might be a little shorter episodes, I told Coupee, maybe less editing. These are gonna be shorter. And then he said, you know, you’ve said that before, Daron. So it’s always dangerous. You put a mic in front of me. We, we don’t know how short or how long these episodes will be, but we’re gonna jump right in. Here’s the first question that we got. I think this was a good one. And came in from a faithful listener. And it says this, how does God feel about working hard to obtain wealth? Okay, so this whole question’s gonna be about money.
A huge question. One of the interesting things about Jesus’s ministry is he talked about money almost when talked about anything in life. And I think there’s a good reason for that. We’re gonna dig into it. The question goes on and says this, yes, of course, to bless his kingdom and tithe to your church, but also to pay your bills, send your kid, your children to school and, you know, all that kinda stuff. Then listener God says, says, I agree there is a level of inappropriate spending like buying a Ferrari. Maybe that’s not inappropriate. We’ll talk about that in a minute, right? But this world is so expensive, becoming more so by the minute, homes are now a million dollars that were once $300,000. I wrestle with this. Are these desires wrong? Okay, great question. Are these desires wrong for wealth, for money?
How do we break that out? And I think it is a great question, cuz I think we all are thinking about it, and we’re probably thinking about it every month when the rent’s due and when the mortgage is due, when the, you know, the car payments due. When groceries are like 8 billion for a dozen eggs you can’t get away from your need for money. And so how does that break out to, is it wrong to have a desire for it? Okay, so we’re gonna unpack it. And I think really this this whole question breaks into a pretty simple category. And it comes down to this love of God or love of money, because as we look through the scriptures, it was never a, a thing of that money in itself is evil or don’t have stuff, don’t have a job. In fact there’s plenty of, of encouragement throughout the scriptures, right?
That we need to have a job. We need to actually put our hands and talents to work. There are gifts and abilities that God has given you that actually serve the kingdom, serve just humanity as a whole. And there is compensation connected to that. And that’s not a bad thing, okay? But here’s where it does break down, is, is our love right, or the center of our heart, our greatest desire? Is it for stuff? Is it for wealth or is it for God? Okay? So what we’re gonna try to do through this whole series is I can give you my opinion, okay? And here’s the deal. If you take my opinion and about I don’t know, like 10 bucks you can go get maybe like like a fountain drink and some beef jerky and a and maybe a Snickers.
And that’s about all, okay? So you don’t need my opinion to base your life around. I think my opinions are pretty good. I have them, okay? But but I’m gonna try to do my best to point us back to what the word of God says. Okay? So to be a little bit of my opinion, little lived experience, but a lot of foundational, what the word of God has to say in Hebrews 13, the word of God tells us this, don’t love money that we could just, that’s the end of the podcast, all right, Cooper, it’s a four-minute 29 second, there it is. Don’t love money, right? But the, the author of Hebrews goes on and says this, don’t love money. Be satisfied with what you have. For God has said, I will never fail you. I will never abandon you. So we say, with confidence, the Lord is my helper, so I will have no fear.
What can mere people do to me? Such good truth in this passage? And I love the fact that Paul comes back and he quotes another scripture where he says, the Lord is my helper. So I will not have fear, or I will have no fear. And I, and often I think in the issue of money, that’s where the, the, the struggle begins to introduce itself is fear. My fear is that I won’t have enough. My fear is that I won’t be able to, to meet the demands around me. And oftentimes when it has to do with, with finances, with material things, we, we quickly allow fear to convince us that we’re alone and convince us that that life is a life of scarcity. And when we get into the idea of, of thinking, man, I, I have to fear. I don’t know that I can trust God with this.
Life is scarce. I don’t know what’s gonna happen to me. I’m alone to figure this out. Oftentimes that is the fuel that drives us to be obsessed with or begin to love money. And so I think so much of what the, the understanding of our relationship with wealth, our relationship with the desire to, to have more really comes down less about money as a tangible reality or how much, or how little we have. It comes down to how much do we trust God? And by understanding how much we trust God, it’s how much do I actually believe that God loves me, that I am actually in a covenant relationship with him, where he is promised to protect and provide for me. And no matter how much or how little I have, it’s not going to be the, the thing that controls or shapes my life.
The question comes back to right where it’s the, the person says, Hey, I agree there’s a level of inappropriate spending like buying a Ferrari. Well, honestly, I don’t think buying a Ferrari is necessarily inappropriate spending. If you look at ratios, okay? If for me, right for me, it would be inappropriate to buy a Ferrari. Okay? That would be excessive, it’d be unnecessary, and it would be extravagant, okay? But it wasn’t inappropriate for me to buy a used Dodge Durango. Okay? You see me driving around Dodge Durango, you go, nice Durango, Darren, thanks. I love it. It has heated seats and heated steering wheel, which I didn’t know every human being needed until I had them. And in Indiana, you need a heated steering wheel. It’s the favorite thing about my entire car. Okay? But here’s the deal. If God had blessed me to run a huge corporation if I had somehow ended up selling like 50 million copies of my book or something, and the ratios were the same, where it was like, okay, well I can buy a Durango or I can buy a Ferrari.
I don’t know that it’s inappropriate for me to buy a Ferrari. Now does everything break down to ratios? Not necessarily, but I, I don’t know that there’s a place where you would say, well, it’s inappropriate to buy extravagant things if they’re not extravagant. I think that the issue is, is the motivation in my life to accumulate things, right? Is my life things and possessions, and do I allow those things and possessions, or the lack thereof to determine my self-worth, my identity, and my drive? I think that’s where this comes down to, okay? Because more scripture, okay? Cuz one Timothy six, nine through 12 through 10 helps us out with this actually using the King James version here. Maybe first time ever the appearance of Kjv on the podcast, stop the presses, okay? But it says it, well, it says this, but those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare and into many foolish and harmful lusts, which, which drowned men in destructive, in destruction.
And ion, you know what, maybe I should have grabbed a different pair of, you know, scripture there, I can barely even say pre-edition. I’m not even sure exactly what it means. Google that I, I think I know what it means. But it says this, for the love of money, for the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil for which some have strayed from their faith and their greediness and pierced themselves through many sorrows. Okay? For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And I’ve heard people mis, you know, misquote this scripture and say, you know what, you know, the root of all, you know, money’s the root of all evil. It’s like, no, money’s not the root of all evil. In fact, money is a great thing to have that actually allows us to do great things in the world.
Look, money itself is not evil. The love of money is the thing that actually leads us right to greediness, right? Allows us to stray. It le leads us to the root of all kinds of things that can destroy our lives. So as we look at it, we say, you know, what is it wrong for me to desire wealth? Well, what do you desire the wealth for? Do you desire it so you can have a Ferrari? And so I can spend it on myself, and so you know, I can go on more vacations and I can just allow my life to become more and more self-focused. Then I think you’re then getting into a place of greediness. Okay? I know a, a friend of mine who who does well, okay? He does very well. And he started another company. He has a couple companies.
He runs, he started another company. And when I talked to him about his desire to start the company, his desire from the get-go was, I’d like to have another income stream that I can begin to use solely for giving. Like, that’s what he wanted to do. He wasn’t like, you know what? My car isn’t nice enough. My house isn’t big enough. My vacations aren’t nice enough. I’m gonna start another company so I can have more. Right? It wasn’t the motivation of developing and growing more wealth. The motivation was I’m going to actually use this as a vehicle for greater generosity. And so you could look at his life and be like, well, he’s just greedy. Look at it. You know, look at his house. It’s so much bigger than mine. Look, you know, he’s so greedy. Look at his car. It’s so much better than mine.
And I remember Irwin McMannis teaching me this about 20 years ago, and he talked about the seasons of life. He had about a 10-year season where he worked with with the urban poor in, in, in Dallas. And I remember him saying that greed has no connection to your amount of wealth. He said some of the most greedy people he’d ever met were some of the poorest people, were some of the most generous people he’d ever met were people with the most amount of wealth. And so, greed is not connected to the amount you have. It’s connected to the actual posture of your heart. And that breaks down to do you love God first and foremost, or do you love s stuff? Do you love money? Ecclesiastes five 10 tells us this in the niv, whoever loves money never has enough. Whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income.
This too is meaninglessness coming back to the same point. This doesn’t have to do with how much you have. It has to do with do you love money or do you love God? We have a lot of examples specifically more in the Old Testament than, than maybe in the New Testament. There were some New Testament kind of side players that we learned about in the growth of the church that had wealth. And a lot of god’s people you know, throughout the Old Testament were people of great wealth and in that way weren’t rebuked for that, right? And so many of the people saw that as God’s blessing upon them. But I think all of that goes back to the initial command that God gave the Israelites, right? That they were to be a people that were blessed to become a blessing.
And so, if my life is, is if my view on my life is I’m a conduit, I’m a conduit of blessing, and I could be, you know, through lots of capital, I’m my relational capital, I’m blessed with friendships so I can spread and build more friendships, right? Maybe it’s through my intellectual capital, right? I have intellectual wealth. I don’t have a ton of it. Some of you have more, way more than I do, right? But whatever, is it relational? Is it spiritual? Is it is it financial? Whatever the capital you have in your life, do you see it as a possession or do you see it as something? No, I’m a conduit of blessing for whatever God has given me. Okay? Hope that makes sense. A little bit more in Ecclesiastes, which is a, is interesting, very, you know a book of wisdom from the Old Testament.
Solomon wrote this book who had a ton of wealth, okay? So he had some perspective on it. He goes on and, and Ecclesiastes five, here’s 18 and 20. He says this, this is what I’ve observed to be good, that it is appropriate for a person to eat, to drink, and to find satisfaction in their toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given them for this is their lot. Moreover, when God gives someone wealth in possessions and the ability to enjoy them, to accept their lot and be happy in their toil, this is a gift of God. They seldom reflect on the days of their life because God keeps them occupied with gladness of heart. I love this passage, right? We’re, we’re, we’re here Solomon saying, listen, what I’ve seen here is that it’s, it, it’s good for God to give us work to do and to be compensated for that.
And here’s the good thing. Hey, when God gives you these thing and the ability to enjoy them, listen, it’s a gift from God. Those things aren’t bad unless those things possess your heart, unless they become the sole purpose of what you’re trying to do in your life. So I remember one time was doing a sermon and and I always talked about, and now always, I always wanted a hot tub, right? I just, I love hot tubs. Like for me, if I get into every day in a hot tub, that’d be great. Like some people don’t like it. I think it’s dirty water or whatever. I, I love hot water with bubbles outside. Phenomenal, okay? And I’d always wanted one, but in my brain I thought, well, I’m never gonna have enough expendable income for me to afford a hot tub. So I’m talking about this in a sermon about money at this church and saying, Hey, God doesn’t, doesn’t have anything against hot tubs.
God doesn’t have anything against vacations, right? God doesn’t have anything right here. Bible telling us that He he’s given you, right? He’s given you wealth and possessions. Enjoy them. And so my point, my sermon was like, if I had hot tub, I would enjoy it. I’m not saying don’t buy hot tub. And the craziest thing happened is the next week I got an email from somebody in the church and they were like hey we have a hot tub that we never use. We’ve had for like a decade and we just want to out of our backyard. If you can get it out of our backyard, you can have it . And I got over to that house pretty quick and got that hot tub, to be honest with you, okay? And I loved every second I had in that hot tub. In fact, I’m still sad.
We moved about eight years ago and for some reason I left the hot tub in the people’s backyard, should have taken it. So I’m just saying that for right now, that if you have a hot tub or you own a hot tub company, me, just reach out to me, Daron@blackbirdmission.com. Send me the hot tub. No, I’m just saying I enjoyed it and I saw it as this is an absolute gift that God had given me. That would’ve been a different thing, is if I had preached that sermon and I had gone to work that week and my whole thing was my life won’t be complete until I am able to buy this for myself. That’s where we start getting off kilter a little bit. And so I think so much of this comes down to priorities. Lemme make sure these priorities and then we’ll wrap it up.
Cause I told Cooper we’re gonna try to keep these episodes short, right? I think it comes down to these four prior priorities. And, and they, and they go down like this, okay? First and foremost, that you’re loved by God. That’s where it starts. A lot of times people say, well, isn’t your first we’re supposed to love God with our heart, soul mindstream we are. But I found practically in my life that I actually have to start with what starts the process, right? I love God because I’m loved by him. Like that’s the foundation. If I can start there now, I have the ability to believe that, that God is a God of abundance. I have the ability to believe that God cares for my needs. I have the to believe in the covenant that I’m in with Jesus, right? And that you’re in with Jesus.
If, if you’re in a relationship with him, that I’m loved by him, I can trust him. Okay? And then the next part is then I love God. I’m loved by God. Second thing is I love God and I love him more than my possessions. I love him more than my money. And I trust him if I’m in seasons of plenty or I’m in seasons of want Cause I’m not alone in this process and I’m trusting him for the life he’s gonna bring into my life to bring, bring to me. Okay? The third point is this. Here’s your third priority. Seek first the kingdom. Right? This comes from the words of Jesus. In the Sermon on the Mount, right? Is love God, I trust him, right? And, and then seek first his kingdom, not third or fourth, or after I have enough money, then I’m gonna start seeking the things of God.
No, I’m loved by God. That’s the foundation. Then I’m loving God and I’m seeking first His kingdom, his righteousness, his will of my life. And then that sets me up to live my life by this fourth priority, which is this. Know that all these things will be added to me. Okay? Now, all these things, I don’t get to determine what all these things are. All these things do not mean an upper-middle-class lifestyle in America, right? All of these things don’t mean Ferraris or hot tubs. All of these things mean the things that God knows I need.
This comes back to the top because he loves me because we’re in a relationship because I know he’s promised to protect and provide for me. That’s what Jesus was trying to teach us, right? In the Sermon on the Mount, where he says to us, right, he says to us this in Matthew six, Matthew six, 19 to 20, don’t hoard treasure down here on earth where it gets eaten by moss or corroded by rust or worse, stolen by burglars, stockpiled treasure in heaven where it’s safe from moth and rust and burglars. It’s obvious, isn’t it? The place where your treasure is, is the place you most want to be and end up being. Jesus ends this amazing sermon portion of this sermon at the very end. And he says this, and, and I think this is so, so good. He says, if God gives such, cuz he just talks about it, right?
Don’t fuss about what you eat or you drink, right? All these different things. And he says this, he says, if God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers, most of which are never even seen, don’t you think he’ll attend to you? Take pride in you. Do what’s best for you. What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, not to be so preoccupied with getting so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God in the way he works, fuss over these things, but you know, both God and how he works, right? I know him. I trust him. So I don’t have to fuss about all these things because I know who he is. I know how he works. I know his character. He says, steep your life and God reality, God initiative, God provisions. Don’t worry about missing out.
You’ll find your everyday human concerns will be met. Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now and don’t get worked up about the, about what may or may not happen to tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes. Okay? There’s another part of this that I, that I wanna see where where basically what, what Jesus says in this passage when he’s talking about, you know, caring for all these things maybe in the N I V where basically he says, right, you fuss about all these things, but God knows that you need them. And that’s always brought me comfort, is to know that this relationship with God, God knows that I need somewhere to live. God knows that I need clothes, right? God knows that I need to eat. It’s not like he’s out here running the universe and he’s like, oh, oh, we, we totally forgot about Daron.
Now you may say, Hey, well Darren, well what about people that are starving, you know, in other countries and stuff? That’s for another podcast, right? We can, we can get into that, but I can also, I’m sure we can go and unpack a lot of those situations and show ways that God shows up where they are and what they’re going through, okay? But for your life, okay, you’ve asked the question cuz you’re wanting to figure out this in your life, for your life, it’s gotta start with those priorities. Like, what do I love most? And is it, do I start with I’m loved by God? I know that. So then the next step is I, I’m in a loving relationship. I love God. I trust him his ways, his provision. Then I seek first his kingdom. That’s number one. And then I know that he knows the things I need.
And I know, as Jesus said, he’s a really, really great dad. And if you who are evil, Jesus says, can give your own kids good gifts, how much more does God want to bless and take you care of you as your child? So I hope that gives us a little perspective to understand how do we deal with wealth? How do we deal wi wi with desires for that? If you have further questions about this, more clarity, you want to ask a dif a different question around this, say, go ahead and reach out. Like I say each and every week, you can always reach out to me, DM me on any of the socials, just search my name, I’m on all of them. You can also email me directly Daron@blackbirdmission.com. Or you can always hit up the the text hotline, which is 317-550-5070. So there’s our first question hopefully answered in a way that helps you take your next step towards becoming who you were born to be, right here on the Daron Earlewine Podcast. And appreciate the feedback. Guys. I’m excited about this series and as we grow together, so till we talk again, remember, always God’s for you, not against you. He’s near you, not far away, and he’s created you on purpose and for purpose.
Talk to you guys next time on the Daron Earlewine Podcast.