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March 22, 2010

If you made it through the snow to one of the three services Sunday (I was amazed h0w many of you did!), I promised to say something about Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University. We have offered this course for the past few years and over 300 adults have taken it. Personally, I have heard many great stories of how God has used these principles in the lives of some of you who have wrestled with the debt monster.

Sunday I was teaching about responsibility. In case you missed it, I took the five main points from Lesson 11 in the Directions Study and applied them, not to individuals, but to the church. Here are the five points:

God holds us responsible for the resources he has entrusted to us.
God wants us to be managers, not owners.
God wants us to be investors, not consumers.
God wants us to be winners, not whiners or worriers.
God wants us to be givers, not takers.

In the course of going through this material I said that Ii wished there was time to let many of you share some of the God-stories of learning to apply some of the lessons you learned in the Financial Peace University (or the Bible – that’s where Dave got them). That’s when it occurred to me that maybe a few of you could briefly share a testimony or two right here in the form of a comment. By the way, you don’t have to go to KCBT to participate. If you can read this, you can participate. Please! This is simply for us to obey scripture by encouraging one another, and I know you want to obey scripture.

So, go at it! Don’t let me down. I know you are out there. Who’ll go first?

Debra

I guess my story is different – tithing isn’t what helped us get out of debt, we had faithfully tithed all of our marriage. The problem was, we were reckless with the other 90% – it was when we took what God had already given us, made a plan (Ramsey’s baby steps) coupled with encouragment from community (A Dave Ramsey forum) that we were able to pay of $19,130 of debt in 13 months! After a month of using a budget, I realized that I didn’t need my second job (even though it was the BEST part time job ever – Bolero is a great place to work!) and I was able to quit my job because we realized that income was not the problem – our spending was the problem! I guess my point is that tithing is only part of the solution – it just means you are being responsible with 10% of your income. If you blow the other 90% then you can tithe all you want but it’s not going to fix your debt!

http://www.kcbt.org Jeff Adams

Thanks, Debra! I appreciate another slant on our problems and you are quite right. There are many people who are faithful to give and even tithe, but it is their spending that gets them in trouble. Your testimony is amazing! The key is not to make more money but to adjust spending to match your income, as you have learned so well. Thanks again for sharing!

Linda Battagler

I agree with Linda T and the others that tithing is the key. God is faithful to us and we need to be faithful to Him. When I became “single” again a number of years ago I was concerned about finances. For a while I didn’t tithe and things stayed rocky financially. I felt convicted to start tithing again and God has provided more than I need ever since. I was able to pay off my car loan, $12,000 in credit card debt, help family members financially and even go on a missions trip to Costa Rica. During that trip Jehovah Jireh (God Provides) became more real to me. Just in time, because the next year I lost the job I had been in for 30 years. But, the final credit card payment was made the following month and God kept providing. I was able to find a job within 3 months. That was nearly two years ago. Being debt free is a wonderful blessing and gives one more freedom to follow all God has planned for your life. Again I say – being faithful in tithing is the key. Thanks Jeff for reminding us that God is the owner and we need to be good stewards of all He allows us to be managers over.

http://www.kcbt.org Jeff Adams

Oh my! What a great story, Linda! All of you have been such a help to simply share the reality of your faith in this area. That is so much more powerful than if I were to do that. This type of sharing is another fine example of what it means to say that WE are the church. Thanks again for this insight, Linda.

Paula

$80 for the FPU class may be the best $80 I have spent! In my mind I was already defeated with my debt, and compared to most, I didn’t have that much debt. The first thing he has you do, is save $1000 for an emergency account…I thought that would take forever! I started looking at all of my accounts and realized I already had $700 in savings and didn’t kow it. It was just spread around in 5 different savings accounts. Just to see that was a HUGE encouragement. After seeing that I was MO-TI-VA-TED! I decided that restaurants were eating too much of my money, so I took a month to “fast” restaurants. God really blessed that. It has been difficult to always stay on track and “be good” when the next new technology came out (one of my weaknesses), and I messed up a little here and there, but overall God has really blessed my obedience. I still have a little bit of debt hanging over my head that I am trying to get paid off, but considering the events of the last two years of my life, (laid off, fired from temp job, going to Africa and now raising support to work with Wycliffe…) the fact that it didn’t skyrocket instead of go down is just…..God! As Christine (above) said….it is “God math.” I kept tithing and giving to the missionaries I was supporting, and God just made the money coming in work. I know I would not be where I am now, if I wouldn’t have gotten a hold on my finances and “gotten them in order” when I did. The class was a blessing! Thanks!

http://www.kcbt.org Jeff Adams

Great story, Paula! I truly appreciate your willingness to share it here.

Linda Thomas

Hi Jeff,
I just want to encourage our church body to just tithe! Jeff, you know our financial testimony when we were first married we had over $124,000 in debt. We made a committment to get out of debt in 5 years and it happened in 4 years. During that time, we not only tithed 10% of our net income, we also gave to MARS, the Building Fund, supported missionaries, and gave to special offerings. We also (and still do) would give to people anomously when we heard of a special need. When we sit down together to do our finances, we pray and the first check is written to KCBT. The point that I’m trying to make is if we would do what God commands us to do “our resonable service” and be content with what God has given us we would learn it is more blessed to give than to receive. Because in giving to God you learn to receive His love. We at KCBT are receiving the love of God through those who gave in the early KCBT days. Now we are giving today to be a blessing to those who will be at KCBT in the future. Let us remember that God owns it all and we are just managers. God is faithful to us in many ways, life, family, home, food, etc. can’t we be faithful to Him by tithing? Thanks for the opportunity to share.

http://www.kcbt.org Jeff Adams

Linda, thank you so much for sharing this powerful testimony. To think of how far God has brought you to where you are today is wonderful! And, you didn’t have to wait to start tithing. You simply obeyed the truth principle and reaped God’s blessing.

Christine Foutts

Although I have only recently begun to follow most of Dave Ramsey’s principles (snowball has been preached to me by my brother the accountant for years…), what has struck me most about my finances is what happened when I have been unemployed. The lessons learned during that period shed a vast amount of light on my finances while I have been employed.

At one point, I was out of work for 9 months. During that time, I learned this lesson: ALWAYS TITHE – even on the unemployment $$’s. I call it God’s math. How I can pay my bills, keep gas in the car to go to job interviews, food on the table, and not get behind on ANY payment while bringing in 25% of my regular income is only explained by “God’s math.”

It makes me wonder what I do with the other 75% that I can really do without. Worth some thought.

http://www.kcbt.org Jeff Adams

God’s math! I love that, Christine! Thanks for your story.

Nancy

In the beginning of 2009, Peter’s company changed their heath insurance policy to high deductible. It wasn’t a good news for us, while we were expecting our second child. The result of that, we had to pay 5000 dollar extra for medical bill. We were hoping we would get some discount, no luck for that. God knows our needs and He provides. We were able to pay it all when we got the bills. In the meanwhile, we felt we had more money to give and we did. He is faithful when we do our part and let God be God. We were so thankful for the finance principles from the Bible and live them out.

http://www.kcbt.org Jeff Adams

That’s wonderful, Nancy! Thank you for sharing this.

Julie Gates

My Husband and I have followed Dave’s Plan since we’ve been married. We feel that it really gave us some boundries on our money and a vision for our future. I like that his ultimate goal is for you to become a giver. We have always wanted to be givers because God has given to us and used people to give to us. We did give while we were getting out of debt…but now that we are out of debt, it is so much easier to give. I guess mentally when you arn’t enslaved to something and you are looking forward instead of backwards, its so much easier.
unixrab

We have gone from six credit card balances and two car payments down to only one card left to pay off…. and no car payments. It was tough at first to wean off of the plastic… and it has been a tough 4 years of paying down debt…but not horrible. Even while paying down debt, using just the money you have, God has seen fit to bless us with lots of luxuries. It will be about 20 more months to be debt free. each tax refund/bonus and/or pay raise was followed by a proportional increase in giving. I’m convinced that God has protected us financially and taught us that the giving is the reason for the blessings and ability to pay off debt after debt… looking forward to being done in 2012

http://www.kcbt.org Jeff Adams

Many thanks to Julie and Richie for priming the pump with these great stories. That’s what I’m talking about and you two have set the bar high. Thanks so much, and I know others will appreciate this, too.

Jeff Adams

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