It’s impossible to serve God and Money!

Serving God and money

 

“No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money”

 

Luke 16:13

 

 I am going to start this devotional with a disclaimer. Lol

 

You might not LOVE this one, but you might just need to hear it!

 

So I want you to encourage you to read this even if the title turned you off.

 

Let’s dive in, shall we?????

 

The other day I took a call from one of the people who works for us.

 

Me, Hey bud what’s up?

 

Then, Well Dan, I have made some bad choices lately with my finances and now I HAVE to take a different job where I can make a LOT more $$$. I know it means that I have to leave my family to make this $$$ but it’s just what I have to do.

 

Me, I get it, is there something that I can do to help, because we hate to lose you!

 

They, Nope, this is just what I have to do right now to get us out of this bind. I’m going back to traveling so that I can make more $$$.

 

Me, I get it, if you ever need a reference or want to come back and we have an opening you are always welcome back! I hope you get what you need right now and never regret this decision. Because I know it was hard to make. I know that you will be successful wherever you are at.

 

You might be asking, Dan what does this have to do with serving $$ and God?

 

Well, let me explain.

 

A lot of times we make decisions when it comes to finances.

 

Maybe we buy something that we should have! Hey, I’ve done that WAYYYYY too many times to count. 

 

Or maybe we just are aware enough of where we are spending $$. And we get stressed because we start racking up debt and sure how it happened.

 

I’ve been there before too!!!

 

There was one time when I lost my job and took one that was much lower wages than I had before.

 

Before long Jenna and I found ourselves in tens of thousands of debt, that was not good debt.

 

I can promise you that it was stressful.

 

How we handled it is what I KNOW made the most significant difference.

 

Instead of thinking, I need to make more $$ we said, How can we cut our expenses?

 

Then while we prayed about what to do we started writing down everything that we could do to save money.

 

Today I won’t go into deep detail of what we did. But I will tell you that we cut EVERY cost possible.

 

We dropped our cell phones, bought the cheapest food, watched how much we drove, took trips that didn’t cost anything except for gas and didn’t eat out, just to name a few things.

 

Some of you might be thinking, How is that living, you only get one life.

 

That’s just what we decided to do to get us to a manageable place where we could start working our way out of debt slowly.

 

Here’s the thing.

 

We leaned on God. We prayed multiple times a day. We talked together to help us stay strong.

 

We learned a LOT as we went through this season of winter in our lives. But we never lost sight of God. Instead, we grounded in God and KNEW that he would provide for us.

 

The whole point here is that I’m not saying that the person who took a higher-paying job was wrong.

 

I am all about bettering yourself.

 

But this person is a Loving family person. Who has young kids? And an amazing family.

 

I saw how much it meant to them for the difference they were making working with us and serving the community. How much joy it brought them knowing that they were making a REAL difference in others lives.

 

I’m just not 1000% sure that this new position will help them have that same contribution.

 

And I wanted to use that as a teaching point for our followers.

 

It’s not all about how much $$ you make.

 

In fact, it is less about how much you make and how you live your life!

 

If you are in financial hardship right now, lean into God and ask him for guidance, not to pay off your bills. Lol

 

Because if you ask, he will answer. Then comes the hard part taking action on what he tells you to do.

 Time to Take Action

Today I want to encourage you to pray for others. Pray for God to guide them.

And re-read those last few lines of the devotional if you are struggling right now.

Then do what God tells you to do.

Listen to your Gut, That’s god speaking to you through intuition.

Prayer

 

Devine creator, we come to you today with hearts that are a little stressed and we would request that you could give us some encouragement and relief from this stress.  God, we don’t pray for you to rain money down on us, but instead, show us how to live the life you need us to live and be fruitful in this life.

Help us to give more than we take, help us to share more than we hold back, and help us to know that you are here for us. I also pray that you will be those of us who are struggling with anything. Help us to lean on you and not our wisdom.  Because your infinite intelligence is so much more comprehensive than ours is.

God, please give the guidance that we desire to live the life you want us to live.

We ask all these things in your precious son’s name.

Amen.

Little More

 

Standing here typing this (that’s right I have a stand up desk and never sit anymore, lol) I am reminded of a recent emotional assessment that I took when I was at a business accelerator.

Yes, you just read that right.

I took an emotional assessment when I was at a BUSINESS accelerator.

In business, we use tools like those all the time to help us improve our leadership and grow our companies.

I usually take one at least 2 times a year. It tells me how I have changed, and then I let my people know my results so that they can learn how to treat me to get what they need. Lol

Anyways!

as we sat there dissecting the results from the assessment for each of us. One of the things that they measured was what motivated us.

There were like 23 different motivators and after taking the assessment it ranked them 1-23.

The 23 categories were stuff like Family, Excelling, Variety, Autonomy, Learning, Teaching, Empowering Others, Money, Service, Making An Impact, Creativity, Problem-Solving, Recognition, Prestige, etc.

Can you guess what my highest motivator out of those is?

I’ll bet that some of you think that because I’m in business and want to succeed that it would be money.

Some might be thinking, Dan talks about family all the time. It has to be super high!

Are you ready for this??????

I had several that were maxed out and therefore came in almost equal

My top 7 that tied for first place were: Excelling, Variety, Autonomy, Learning, Challenge, Service, And Pressure!

Then as I read the assessment results further I noticed that family was in the bottom 4 and money was at the very bottom, with absolutely NO questions answered that lead to being money driven.

To be honest I was a little upset with the results at first.

I mean how can family, purpose, and money be at the bottom of my motivators?!?!?!?!?!

I am 10000% about family, and I do want to make money so..

I just didn’t get it. And was kind of like, Hey this thing is flawed because there is no way that this thing is right!

The next day when we went over the results they explained why those rated the lowest for me.

It is because I was not worried about either of those at all.

Money will come and go., and I have trained myself not to worry about it. I give that God as much as possible.

Of course, I still have to be diligent and listen to him.  I mean you don’t see me going out and buying a $40 million privet jet (yet) or going deep into debt for tons of liabilities, like cars, toys, and new gadgets that just cost money.

Because I don’t worry about money it doesn’t motivate me. I KNOW that it will come when I need it.

The family was the same way.

Because I have an amazing family, like Jenna, the kids, my parents, and my brother, this family of God First, and even my Eclipse DOT and DOT Docs family, I don’t worry about family.

I have a GREAT one. So, I don’t have to stress about it.

I have a solid relationship with God, Jenna, and many other people

If I didn’t have those things or the mindset about money that I have then they would be way higher on my motivators list.

If you are ever interested in learning more about yourself with one of these types of assessments. Just let me know and I can hook you up.

As I took this assessment I thought how I would have answered the questions drastically differently just a few years ago.

And 5 years ago it would have probably been the exact opposite of what it is now.

In case you are interested in my results you can see them below for yourself.

Hope that you’ll have a great day.

And remember the mindset is the difference between failing (it only happens when you give up) and winning!

 

 

Dan Greer