The Heart of Money
Join financial counselor, Christ follower, and founder of the Center for Financial Discipleship, Courtney Markley as she takes on tough money questions and delivers actionable guidance. Courtney's gentle but straightforward approach creates a safe, nonjudgmental space for people to talk about their money challenges. After coaching for several years, Courtney understands that money stress is usually a symptom of a deeper problem. Her approach to money will expand your understanding of how to succeed financially. You will gain tools needed to improve your money mindset while becoming someone who can have deeper, Christ-centered money discussions. Join Courtney in her mission to change the way we talk about money, one conversation at a time.
The Heart of Money
Why Money Matters to God
What if your money told a story about who you worship? We dive into a question many believers feel but rarely voice: why would an infinite God care so much about money? The answer starts with identity. We were created first as worshipers and then as stewards, and that order reshapes every choice we make—earning, giving, saving, and spending. When worship leads, stewardship becomes an act of love rather than a race for output.
In this conversation, we trace this through scripture: Cain and Abel show that God weighs the heart behind the gift, not just the gift itself. Mary and Martha remind us that presence with Jesus outranks productivity for Jesus. And Paul’s letters to the Corinthians reveal generosity as a test of sincere love, pointing us back to the grace of Christ, who became poor so we could become rich in Him. Along the way, we wrestle with a real-world tension faced by high-capacity leaders: should I push for more ventures that crowd my calendar, or slow down to abide? The answer isn’t anti-ambition; it’s about alignment—offering God worship first so our work flows cleanly from it.
You’ll leave with practical questions that recalibrate the heart: Do my financial choices deepen my dependence on God? Does my giving lead others to thank Him? Where is my money training my affections? We share rhythms for prayerful decision-making, frameworks for planned and spontaneous generosity, and a simple test for stewardship that echoes Paul’s vision: use money in ways that meet real needs and spark praise.
Welcome to the Heart of Money Podcast. This is the place to go for deep, Christ-centered, 20-minute or less money conversations that lead to heart change and generosity. I'm your host, Courtney Markley, and as a certified Christian financial counselor, I have helped hundreds of people transform their finances and grow closer to Jesus in the process. So let's get started. So I was at church the other day and a woman approached me, knowing that I'm a financial counselor, and she said something that really struck me, and I want to bring the conversation to you today. She said, I don't understand why God talks about money so much. He is the maker of the heavens and the earth. He is this all-powerful, infinite being. Why does he care so much about money? This thing that is so temporary, artificial, and superficial. So I would love for us to lean in and explore this question today. Because we all encounter money every day. And I'm curious how well we fully understand God's intention for it. Especially knowing many of you coming and listening to the Heart of Money podcast, you care very much for God's word. And many of you work in the financial space, whether you're a pastor or a ministry leader or a financial advisor, you may be someone who not only encounters money from a personal standpoint, but you are also discipling others and how they use their money. I am just so excited that you are here, that God is working in you, and He's giving you a desire to lean into this space. So let's talk about why does money matter to God? I love this woman's question because it was so honest and she was very sincere and questioning truly, why does God talk about this so much? So when I think about this question, why does God care about money? What is his purpose for it? In my mind, it's really difficult to answer this question without first addressing the question, why were we created? You know, God gives us money to use and interact with. So before we go right to the purpose of it, I think it's helpful for us to step back and look at the bigger picture and first answer, why did God create us? Now we could probably examine scripture and find a lot of reasons why God made us, but I'm going to narrow in on two distinct roles that we've been given. One role is as a steward, and another is as a worshiper. Now, how we order these roles is incredibly important. We've all been given several roles in life. Many of you listening may be a spouse or a parent or a daughter or a son or a sibling. You may have a specific role that you have for work and so on and so on. And not all of these roles are created equal. You know, if I started to view myself first and foremost as a financial counselor, well, you could see how my relationship with my husband and my kids would potentially begin to break down because I'm putting that role ahead of my role as a wife and as a mother. So how we order the roles that we've been given in life, I think make a big difference in how we execute those jobs. And I believe the same thing is true with the various roles that God has given us. So when we talk about money, especially within a Christian context, many of us are quick to self-identify as stewards. We say things like, Well, God owns it all, I simply get to manage it, and that's all true, right? In Genesis, we read that God placed Adam in the garden to work it and keep it. So he's given Adam dominion over his creation. It's not Adam's to own, but it is his to care for. So we're here right away at the beginning of the good book, we see God giving Adam this role as steward. But this isn't the primary reason why God created man or created Adam. I like to sit back and I picture God creating the heavens and the earth and all of these beautiful things. And after a few days, he's looking around at the world he's just made, and he's thinking, Well, shoot, you know, this is gonna be a lot of work for me to keep up. I should make someone to take care of this for me. Right? That's not what he was thinking when he created man. In Genesis 1, we read, Then God said, Let us make man in our image after our likeness. So we see the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit from a place of wholeness and love, saying, Let us make man in our image. I think the closest thing that we have to understanding and experiencing this within our own lives happens within our families. So picture a husband and wife uh coming together out of love. They desire to create another person in their likeness to love. So their love for one another bursts this desire to create more people to love. And why do we want children? Well, I haven't met a new mom recently who shows me her beautiful baby and says, Yeah, I just can't wait to put this kid to work. No, no, no. We we are so excited as we hold these children in our hands and we just deeply desire relationship with them. And we're excited about all the memories we're gonna make with them and all the things we get to do with them and the life that we get to have with them. This is how God views us. God deeply desires our worship, he desires our attention, he desires our hearts and our relationship. Does God give us work to do? Absolutely, he does. But it's important to understand that our first and primary role, I believe, is that of a worshiper, and then as a steward. And why does this matter? Well, let's break it down a little bit. So our work is acceptable to God, and I should say our work as stewards, I believe, is only acceptable to God if our worship is acceptable to God. And let me throw in some scripture references to, again, just give us some handles as we're thinking about this. So the first story that comes to mind is that of Cain and Abel. What I find interesting is that both Cain and Abel offered sacrifices to God. It's not that one brother offered everything and the other one withheld everything. No, no, they both offered sacrifices to God. However, God accepts one and rejects the other. And why is that? Well, it's because he he knew their hearts. And he told Cain, sin is crouching at your door. He's telling him, there's a heart issue going on here. You're not truly giving this to me in an act of love and worship. There's a heart issue. And so his work as a steward wasn't acceptable because his worship was not pure. And then I think about Mary and Martha. Now I love both Mary and Martha. I think the Martha's of the world get a bad rap. Uh, both of these women, I believe, uh, deeply desired uh to serve the Lord with everything they had. But we read this story about God going into the home of Mary and Martha. And Martha immediately takes up the role as hostess, as would be like very culturally appropriate back then. But even now, I could only imagine hosting the Messiah in my home. And I would be very stressed about this. And I would say, Oh, I probably need to clean a lot, I need to get my best dishes out, I need to go to the grocery store and prepare all this really nice food. And that's what Martha's doing. She is uh just working her tail off, trying to serve Jesus in her home. And what is her sister Mary doing? Well, she's actually doing the thing that was very countercultural for women back then. But Mary, instead of helping Martha in the service, she's just sitting at Jesus' feet amongst his disciples and listening to him. And Martha gets upset with her sister because she has chosen to sit and rest with Jesus instead of serving. And she says, Lord, tell her to get up and help me. And Jesus so kindly and gently says, No, Martha, Martha, there's only one thing that needs to be done right now, and Mary has chosen correctly, and it won't be taken from her. So what we see here is that although I'm sure Jesus appreciated all the work that Martha was doing earnestly for him, what he ultimately desired was for her to just sit and rest at his feet, to spend time with him, to build a relationship with him. And so it's important for us to remember as we're thinking about our work as stewards, that God doesn't necessarily need our work, but he does desire our worship. So in Genesis, we read that God would meet Adam in the garden to walk with him, to fellowship with him. But when sin entered the world, that fellowship was broken, and we entered the state of spiritual confusion where many of us forget why we were created. So I think too often, especially in our society, that values getting stuff done, we forget that our primary role is first as a worshiper of God. You know, I was talking to someone recently. This was uh a person who, again, has a real heart for the Lord and is eager to do his work. Uh, he's also a very high capacity business owner, and his wealth has been growing pretty exponentially. And as that happens, many of you know that as uh your wealth increases, your business is growing, your capacity and your time really gets pushed to the limits. And he was someone who was struggling to really make time for God. And it was interesting. He we were talking about all of this money that he had sitting aside that had recently grown, and he was thinking about how he could potentially use this money for good things. And he said, You know, do you think God wants me to invest this money in rental properties and start pursuing rental properties? Even though I mean so it's gonna take up even more of my time, and it's gonna be harder for me to slow down, it's gonna be even harder for me to spend time praying and just being with God and reading my Bible. So essentially he was asking, which is better to go earn money for God or to spend time with God. And I appreciate that he had the self-awareness to realize that he didn't really have capacity to do both to the extreme that he was wanting. You know, we don't have an unlimited capacity, we can only do so much, and too often many of us prioritize doing stuff for God instead of being with God. And so this is the danger of putting our stewardship above our worship. So remember that our work as stewards is really only acceptable to God if our worship is acceptable to God. So, going back to the original question, why does money matter to God? And I want us to frame this in light of our role as worshippers first. One thing that we read throughout scripture as a consistent message is that our use of money is tangible evidence of our love for God. You know, as Paul is addressing the Church of Corinth in 2 Corinthians chapter 8, he is commending them and he is encouraging them towards generosity. And what he says is really interesting. As he's asking them to give, he says, I am not commanding you, but listen to this, he says, But I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others, for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich. So Paul is saying that I want to test the sincerity of your love, because Christians, those of us who have experienced the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, we ought to be the most generous people in the world because we have received the most generosity in all of the world. And that is the point that Paul is making in this scripture. We also read in 1 John chapter 3, 16 and 17, this is how we know what love is, that Jesus Christ laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother and sister need, but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? So, friends, our use of money is truly like a tangible evidence of our love for God and for others. Now, of course, only God can judge the heart posture, right? It's not simply about the act of giving itself, but it's truly about the heart posture of the worshiper, of bringing our offerings and sacrifices to God as a way of saying thank you, as a way of saying, I don't deserve this, as a way of saying, Jesus, you have literally poured out your life for me. This is the least that I can give. So, as worshipers, let's talk through what else can money do? Well, our use of money can actually create dependency on God to build up our faith. It can create humility as we put the needs of others above our own. It creates opportunities for us to submit to God's will. It demonstrates what it means to sacrifice and to carry our cross. We can use money to demonstrate our compassion for others. And we can use money as an opportunity to allow others to experience God's provision and goodness. Because friends, we know that God desires to bless his children, he is the ultimate provider. And when our basic needs are met, he invites us to partner with him in providing for others to produce a thanksgiving to God. One of my favorite verses in 2 Corinthians 9, 12 and 13. Again, Paul is talking to the Church of Corinth and he's uh encouraging them to give and be generous. And he says, the service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of the Lord's people, but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God because of the service by which you proved yourselves, others will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else. So as we start to wrap up today's conversation, a good question to prayerfully consider, friends, is this When you use money, do other people praise God? When we use money, how can we view that as an opportunity to draw closer to God, to create more dependence on him, to demonstrate God's love and compassion for others? So why does money matter to God? Well, I believe it's because we matter to God. I believe it's a tool that he has put in the hands of those who worship him and who steward everything for his glory and his praise. And he knows the temptations of our hearts, he knows that we're prone to wander, which I believe is why he constantly reminded us of what his heart was and how to use money in a way to draw our hearts closer to him and to bring praise and glory to our Father. So I hope you enjoyed today's conversation. Friends, thank you so much for joining us once again on the Heart of Money Podcast. Remember to subscribe so that you don't miss any future conversations. And if you desire to have more conversations like this one, you can visit our website at www.financial discipleship.center. There you'll find we have Bible studies and online courses. We help deliver sermons and workshops and even provide one-on-one counseling. So if you're someone who wants to lean in more to the heart of money, we want to champion you and we want to help you. So you can also message me directly at Courtney at Financial Discipleship. Thanks again for joining us, and we'll see you next time. Thank you so much for joining us. If you enjoyed the conversation today, then share it with a friend. And be sure to subscribe to our podcast so that you never miss an episode. And again, thank you so much for joining us on our mission to change the way we talk about money one conversation at a time. I'm your host, Courtney Markley, and this has been The Heart of Money.