Welcome to the For the Gospel Podcast, where we provide sound doctrine for everyday people. I'm your host, Kosti Hinn. And whether you're listening to this on your favorite podcast platform or watching on our YouTube channel, thank you for joining me for this episode. Last time we talked about biblical principles for saving, investing, and key steps in order to be a good steward of the money that God has given you, which, as we've covered already, is really God's money. And we want to manage his money that he's given us according to his will. In this episode, I want to give you 10 character qualities that you need in order to handle money faithfully. And I would say this is going to be less about how much money you have and more about who you are, no matter how much money you have. With these qualities, I believe you're going to be an excellent money manager and you're going to be excelling in your life. When it comes to all of the principles that we've covered up to this point in the series, let's jump right into it. Number one, self-control. This is the number one quality on the list because it's going to help you thrive. Proverbs 25, verse 28 says this like a city that is broken into and without walls is a man, you could say, or woman, who has no control over his or her spirit. People who cannot control themselves, whether that be their emotions or their actions, they are going to cause destruction. And yeah, for others, but primarily and mostly for themselves. And one of the reasons that I would be most concerned about someone who lacks self-control being a harm, not so much to others or themselves, is because other people will naturally start to avoid someone who doesn't have self-control, but they are stuck with the issue. And the inability to control ourselves when it comes to money is one of the fastest ways to go broke or waste what God has given you, be that out of control spending, or the inability to resist the impulse buy, or you go into debt. Self-control is a treasure that protects us from constant impulse buying, being swooned by marketing ploys, spending out of laziness. How many times you just go, ah, I don't, I don't feel like, you know, whatever. I'm just gonna do this, and we eat out or we do whatever or buy stuff because we're lazy. Other times it's just a lack of discipline with our saving or our investing or paying off debt. Self-control is key. If you can exercise this all-important fruit of the spirit, you're gonna be a step ahead when it comes to managing your money. Number two, contentment. In our home, we often say contentment is a superpower. My wife and I like to talk about that together because, like everyone else, contentment can be a challenge. We're driven people. Our kids are pretty driven even at a young age, and we talk to them about the importance of being a go-getter in life, but also contentment. In other words, you can overcome a lot of temptation, feelings of insecurity, lack of joy, even comparison, whether that be to others or your own scorecard, I should be this by now. I should be at this point, we should be this. Look, being content with who you are, what you have, and how God has ordered your life is a key for every Christian. Whether you're in ministry, whether you're in business, a student in college, aspiring to be successful in your career, contentment with money is a tension that we live in. On one hand, well, we want to be what one coach often said to us after a good game, you can be pleased, but don't be satisfied. Put that in baseball terms, it's like you go four for four with a home run, and your coach would say, hey, don't get too cocky about tomorrow. You can be satisfied, but don't be pleased. Or rather, you can be pleased, but don't be satisfied. Because if you get satisfied, you're not gonna play with hunger in the next game. So pleased but not satisfied is this tension we often live in. We're thankful for what God has done today, but it's like I'm gonna go do more tomorrow. I do think there ought to be what John Piper once called a holy discontentment in our lives. That is, we're thankful and we're content with where we are by the grace of God, and yet we want more of God, more meaningful time with our kids, more meaningful time with spouses. We want to reach more souls with the gospel, want to disciple one more believer, want to know more scripture. I want to, as a worker, earn more money to provide for my family. Maybe you're somebody who's growing in your career and you're saying, Yeah, I'm not trying to be rich or greedy. I just want to continue to advance the ball. And when contentment is paired with godliness, oh, what a superpower. When that drive to work hard or get after it is paired with a rest in Christ and a contentment with his grace today, you're gonna live in that tension the way God has designed it. Thankful for where he's got you today, but ready to rock and roll again tomorrow. Paul the Apostle in 1 Timothy 6, 5 to 7 speaks about godliness with contentment being great gain. And so we can be pleased, but never satisfied until heaven with our godly pursuits, our work, earning money, saving, investing, our time, and how we provide and all other aspects of Christian faithfulness, and that is still a healthy way to live. But there's a dark side to discontentment. Like when John D. Rockefeller was once asked how much is enough, and he said, Oh, just one more dollar. When discontentment and greed mark your life, oh, you're not living in the pleased but never satisfied. I want more of God, I want more uh souls, I want more provision for my family, I want to be a better money manager, I want more of the things that God has called me to. No, when you're obsessed with just having more for the sake of having more because of comparison and discontentment, look, you're it's gonna affect your joy. You're gonna be a bear to live with. You're gonna be a drama queen to be around because it's never enough. You always look, and what someone else has makes you miserable, or you're just not happy with your own life, and so you attack everyone else around you and everything, and then you're miserable. Maybe you're mad at God. I mean, this is how people blaspheme the Lord because of the way they act or how they talk. Listen to this from the Puritan Thomas Watson. He once said, When the heart is discontented, it casts forth the foam of anger, impatience, and sometimes little better than blasphemy. Murmuring is nothing else but the scum that boils off of a discontented heart. Oh, that hits hard and it should. A lack of contentment doesn't just accompany greed, but it's also at the root of a complaining heart. But with it, all our gains, oh, they don't alter our joy. With contentment, whatever God does, you're pleased and you're eager for more, but you're comfortable with whatever pace he determines by his providence. Quality number three, prudence. Of all these qualities, this is the one we've probably talked about the most on the podcast. I've done an entire episode on it. Prudence is in the episodes on God's Will. It's in the new book that I wrote on God's Will. Prudence is kind of the unsung hero, I think, in the Christian life. And it's defined this way by the dictionary: the ability to govern and discipline oneself with the use of reason. And also shrewdness in the management of affairs. There has to be tact, logic, strategy, and purpose to what you're trying to accomplish with your money. That's prudence, along with clear plans and sticking to those plans. Prudent people are often successful because they govern and discipline themselves towards a goal, and they cannot be easily swayed in every other direction by the winds of whatever's blowing the next day. Quality number four, teachability or being teachable. You gotta be teachable. I want to be teachable. It takes prudence to be disciplined and stay the course. Absolutely. But a teachable spirit is key for money management because effective leaders are always learning. Effective money managers are always learning. We never think we know it all. We're always looking to learn a new skill. We want to acquire more wisdom. And when it comes to money, you can't just be content to do whatever your mom and dad did, even if your mom and dad did well. You don't just take advice from whoever without checking it against scripture. At the same time, we don't want to be resistant to good advice. We want to be teachable. Look at what people are living like or how they manage things and seek wisdom from them. Look at the way that they are content. Look at the way that they've ordered themselves. Teachable people are effective money managers and money makers because they're growers. And by that I mean them trying to grow. They personally are always seeking to grow. They don't come in hot thinking they know everything. They don't think they've arrived because they've got a lot of money. No matter what they've earned, they always understand hey, I've got more to learn. Number five, humility. Humility was a big focus in the last episode on saving and investing when we talk about God blessing us. And so it still deserves an appearance on this list. It has to be a prevalent quality in our life when it comes to money management. Humility keeps your feet on the ground when your net worth soars. Humility is the quality that will actually keep you teachable. Humility is the quality that keeps you remembering that Christ is the hero. He's the only king, and you're his servant. You aren't the hero of the story, no matter how awesome the storyline is that God's writing in your life and what you make and what you have. It's all about him. And I'll say it this way: money doesn't make you a different person, it brings out the kind of person you really were all along. Number six, discipline. I would add this quality in addition to self-control, because discipline, while of course it's being closely linked to self-control, can be argued as what produces the self-control. Discipline is regimen. It's putting yourself under strict guidelines, which is going to lead to the resulting fruit of self-control. Paul the Apostle links this quality to faithful ministry. And most certainly we can apply this to faithful money management, including the ministry of managing money. You've got to have discipline, regimen, and guidelines keeping you in check. First Corinthians 9, verses 24 to 27 says this Do you not all know that those who run a race all run, but only one receives the prize? He's talking about spiritual things, of course. Run in such a way that you may win, meaning live your life. Act in a way that you're going to win. Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. Therefore, Paul says, so based on the goal of winning and the importance of having self-control in my life, I run in such a way as not without aim. I box in such a way as not beating the air. He's saying I'm not doing things aimlessly. I think that applies to the way we use our money. But I discipline my body, I make it my slave. He's talking about being under control with his immorality, temptation, sexual sin, all of it, his integrity. He's saying I buffet my body, I discipline it. And that way, after I've preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified. If we would apply the way Paul ran his ministry race to the way we manage our money, then discipline becomes so key. The strict regimen of saying, I'm not messing around, I want to win this race. Quality number seven, generosity or being generous. Open hands to receive, open hands to give. This is the healthy Christian steward whom God will often bless with more because they're trustworthy. Generosity is a key quality to faithful money management because the ability to release money that moves God's work down the field and ministers to the needs of others will always be a worthwhile investment. And in that, let me just remind you: be discerning about where you're investing. And by that I mean investing in kingdom work. Be discerning. Don't be given to these hucksters and charlatans online who are hustling you or on these television programs saying if you give to me, God's going to make you rich, or I believe this, this, and this. And they're telling you things that maybe feel good. If you're if you're someone who hasn't been exposed to a lot of biblical teaching, maybe you're newer to our ministry. I want to encourage you to use greater discernment with your generosity. Giving to work that is trustworthy, giving to work that is proven and has fruit bearing from it and has a track record, giving to work that you can see is matching what scripture teaches, not just giving to give. It's not just throwing it out there and then not worrying about the rest. It's thinking about what you're investing in, which leads to quality number eight, wisdom. Proverbs chapter 3, verses 13 to 16 says, How blessed is the man who finds wisdom and the man who gains understanding for her profit. It's better than the profit of silver, and her gain is better than fine gold. She's more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire compares with her. Long life is in her right hand, and in her left hand are riches and honor. Wisdom. Wisdom, wisdom, wisdom. That's the character quality that's better than riches because it's the root of any sustained success you're ever going to have. This is why, by the way, a lot of people who win the lottery end up broke. A lot of athletes who don't have wisdom, they don't have high character, or they don't have people around them who have high character, end up signing contracts for millions of dollars. And you watch some of these ESPN 30 for 30 episodes or these different documentaries about athletes who had it all and then end up broke because they lacked wisdom to manage what they had been given. The word of God is your trusted ally in the pursuit of wisdom. So if you commit to following it closely and saturating your life with it, when it comes to your money management decisions, you are going to be God informed because you're saturated with God's word. Quality number nine, integrity. Proverbs chapter 10, verse 9 says, He who walks with integrity walks securely, but he who perverts his ways will be found out. What a passage. Simply put, the way you handle money is directly linked to your integrity. Now, everybody makes mistakes. Some people have minor oversights, or you're learning some new lesson you didn't know and you didn't understand how this worked with your taxes. You're not a tax evader and you're not a liar and some scandalous Christian with no integrity. You made a mistake in your learning. However, we're all familiar with the stories of Christian business owners knowingly fraudulent behavior being prevalent in their business, in their own life, going to prison for that, or pastors or ministry workers embezzling funds, knowingly mixing shady business deals within elder teams or kind of the good old boys' club in some churches where certain guys hang out together or different ladies and they're all in business together, and there's a lot of shenanigans going on, but as long as everybody's profiting, meanwhile, it's all very sinful and lacks integrity. How about church members cheating others for greedy gain? I was reading about one story recently about a Christian business owner. He was a professing Christian who misused PPP funds under the guise of his business, only to be using it for personal assets and not even needing it. And of course, we all read the news story that went public on Joel Osteen, who I believe is a false teacher. He hit the news for pulling millions in PPP funds to the tune of like 4.4 million, and he had to pay them back. All of these stories should be a convicting reminder that while we do conduct business in the world, we don't do so with the shady practices of the world. We play by the rules. Integrity matters. Christians are called to be people of integrity. And so you got to have wise counsel. You got to men around you that know what they're doing and know what they're talking about and hold to what scripture says, not just a bunch of dudes looking to make a buck. And when we operate like the world, God will not be mocked. Elder teams need to be aware of this. Churches, CFOs, accountants, but every kind of individual. If you're a young Christian and you're growing in your understanding of money, don't for one second think that integrity is detached from even your goal setting. Not just do you want to be wealthy, but what kind of wealthy person do you want to be? God will discipline us if we belong to him. He's good like that. And God will purge our heart of idols if they are prevalent within us. Integrity guards us from the discipline that comes when we go on in our sin. We will be punished for it. There are consequences. But with integrity, oh, you could trust the Lord, knowing that you're doing the right things in private. And no matter what someone's opinion might be, or no matter what the market is doing, or no matter what's going on in the world around you, you have your integrity so you can walk securely. You've sought wise counsel from godly individuals. What you're doing with your money is above board and it is honorable in God's sight, leading to the tenth quality, Christ-centered. And by that I mean you've got to be Christ-centered in the way you manage your money. Paul the Apostle says to live is Christ, to die is gain. And he often wrote and preached about his desire to go hard while here on earth and yet with a longing to be with Christ in glory. Apply that to the way you manage your money. And I believe that the best money managers from a Christian perspective are using what they have gained to gain what they can never lose. The reward of a life well lived, the reward of treasure in heaven, the reward of having lived all of life for Christ, and the reward of peace, which money cannot buy. Peace in your heart and mind on our final day, when we look back with sure, some regrets, because we're sinners, but very few in that we didn't go all out for the Lord. Will you say and I I could have given more? Always I could have done more. Yes, I could have ministered or evangelized just one more person. Yes, I'd give one more day with my wife, one more day for time with the kids. We'll all say those things because we're human, but in the end, when we've run our race well, we don't say those things laced with regret or knowing we haven't been faithful and a fear of meeting the Lord, we long for it. When we do our best to live and give and go all out for the gospel and the glory of Christ, we can say that we have been a faithful steward by the grace of God. A Christ-centered, focused, focused life is going to lead you there. And when he's everything to you, he'll own every part of you. And your money, along with mine, becomes a tool that we put to use in the right ways. The inability to use control and to walk in faithfulness with our money is evidence that we need to change. At the same time, by God's grace, if you're seeing these qualities unfold in your life, wow, what a privilege and what an opportunity to continue being a faithful steward in all that he's given you, and what a chance to make a mark in whatever way God will allow while you're here on earth for his glory. I pray that your home will be strengthened. I pray that your life will be effective, and most of all, that your work will bear much fruit, not just by way of money, but by way of how you and I manage it. Well, that's it for this episode. What a series it's been so far, based on your response. Thank you for your comments. Thank you for the DMs, the messages, the emails, letting us know how these resources are serving you and strengthening you. It's been really fun, I think, for me personally, to study this topic. It's renewing a lot of the things that I studied early on coming out of the prosperity gospel, but I'm finding a new sense of appreciation for good biblical teaching on money. And I promise you we'll put out more resources on this topic. I think it's a really important time for Christians to be strong in our money, money management, and to be faithful stewards because our money can be useful for advancing the gospel, but also for strengthening our homes and raising godly children who go on to be deployed from our homes with the right perspective of money, life, the gospel, and the glory of God. Remember, please send in your questions by DMing for the gospel on Instagram or emailing them to us. You can go to forthegospel.org and send them in the contact form because next week I'm going to be answering all of your money-related questions. We've already had a bunch come in. Please send in more and we'll end this series on a high note answering what you've asked. Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching. Thanks for supporting. Thank you for praying for our ministry. I'll be back next Monday with another episode. Keep on living for the gospel.