Baby Shepherd

Money Tips!!!

I am terrible with money because I can’t be precise to save my life. I’m a saver married to a spender. But my saving is always relative. I never know how much I’m saving. I just like to throw money in savings and never spend on anything. So, thankfully, God has been gracious to me in many ways in terms of his provision (especially in the area of a wife who watches the bank account like a hawk.) So, see these tips on money but once you get past the first three, I don’t know how good they really are.

#1 Trust the Lord for your provision. Seek him and follow his commands. (See Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the Lord with all your heart; lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.)

#2 Be content with what you have. Do you really, really need more stuff? I bet you could survive on what you have. So, stop striving for more stuff. It just drowns out your ability to follow #1 because you trust your stuff more than you trust God.

#3 Get a job and be faithful at performing it.

#4 Make a budget that allows you to live within your means and that supports the following items (see #s below). Kimberly and I use the envelope system. We learned it from Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University. But you can probably find more info about it online.

#5 Give generously. Tithe to your church (if you have one -- If you don’t you probably shouldn’t be reading this list anyway). And, don’t be nitpicking about tithing on gross or net. Be generous. There’s actually no New Testament command to the church to give 10% so give more than that.  Give toward the advancement of the gospel and to other good causes.

#6 Put $1000 in a savings account. Sacrifice a few lattes or a few shopping sprees and save one thousand dollars. Leave it in savings and only remove it for REAL emergencies. Needing a pair shoes is NOT an emergency. If your air conditioner goes out in your car, that’s NOT an emergency. If its winter and the heat in your house doesn’t work, that IS an emergency. But, remember #1, don’t start to trust in that $1000 because as soon as you start to trust in that, you’ll have $5000 worth of trouble.

#7 Get out of debt. Pay off credit cards. Pay off car loans. Pay off student loans. And, close the accounts. You might save one credit card just so your credit score doesn’t tank (in case you ever need or want to buy a house)

#8 Start to buy stuff with cash. So, for instance if you need a car after you’ve paid the current one off, save the money so that with your trade you can pay cash for a car that is one or two years old (or older if you can stand it). For most of us we won’t ever buy a house with cash. But, most recommend a short term loan like 10 or 15 year mortgages.

#9 Don’t give loans. I don’t loan anybody money. I do obey Jesus’ command to give to those that ask of me. But, I usually don’t expect it back. I don’t always say that I don’t expect it back, but I make sure I can live without it when I give it. This will save your relationships with your family and friends. Loaning money and holding onto an expectation to see it again, will cause you to harbor unforgiveness.

#10 Be content with what you have. Yeah, I know I said that in #2 but you need to hear it again. Unfortunately, living in America, we tend to fall prey to culture’s bent for us to have more and more and MORE. (As a for instance, I can think of 20 reasons why Kimberly and I need a bigger house. But honestly, people in a lot of places raise bigger families than ours in less space with fewer things. So, until baby #4 gets here, I think we’ll stick it out in our 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath house). You like that subtle hint, don’t you?

How long is too long?

So, people joke around all the time saying things like "Don't pray for patience or the Lord will have you waiting on everything."   That's kinda funny, but ultimately if we have the Spirit of God eventually we better be showing some patience or what we're really saying is that we don't have the Spirit of God.

This morning I was doing a little blog reading and I ran across one that mentioned a lady from Luke Chapter 13.  It's the lady that had a disabling disease that prevented her from being able to stand upright for 18 years.  18 years?  Can you imagine staring at the ground having to shuffle your feet to move; getting neck strain in order to see where you're going for 18 years?  But, thankfully, one day the Master called her to himself and he released her from her affliction.

That also reminds me of the story of the guy described as an invalid that laid by the pool of Bethesda for 38 years.  When Jesus saw him, he asked the question, "Do you want to be healed?"  And this poor fellow couldn't even offer a straight answer.  He started blaming others for his problem.  If only he had somebody put him in the pool.  Jesus was matter of fact and didn't have time for all of this hemming and hawing.  His immediate command to the man was to "Pick up your bed and walk."  So, we see the opposite side of patience where this man had stopped seeking change.  He had all but given up on being better.

And, last, it reminds me of Abraham who waited 25 long years to see the promise of the true son.  At age 75, God had called Abraham out and sent him to a land making him the promise that his offspring would be as the stars of the sky and the sand along the sea.  At 90, Abraham and God met and they talked about Abraham (or Abram at the time) and how he went childless still.  Here he was 15 years into this relationship with God and what God had promised had not happened yet.  But, the bible says that Abraham "believed God".   It was even 10 more years before Isaac was born, but Abraham believed God and did not waiver in his trust.


And, that's the Word for the day.  Trust God.  Be patient because he is not slack concerning his promises.  So, how long is too long?  As long as you know that God is good for it.  Don't let the Satan bind you into thinking that God won't come through.   There is no such thing as too long because even if you don't see what you're looking for on this side of heaven; it's still coming if you are his.

Girls have cooteys (or is it cooties?)

Don't take this the wrong way (aside: when a person starts out like that, there's only one way it can be taken and that's the way they don't want you to take it), but when it comes to children, I have banned girls from our house.   Well, that's the way I used to think.  I only wanted sons and for the most part that probably still holds.  You see the problem with girls is that their dad becomes this mushy substance in their hands...  I've talked about this girl thing before in a blog in a post titled Father of the Bride.  And additionally, I've had a little bit of personal experience through our foster children.  We had one three year old that would cry just because she could.  And, I didn't know what to do with that.  And then we've had a five year old that just stared at me (until she needed help at which point we were best friends and then after that she just stared at me).  Again, I didn't know what to do with that.

But alas, I met a girl that made me wish she was my daughter.  She goes by Daisy (Her real name sounded like "Evon-Dee") and she lives in Haiti in an children's home.   She's 10 and like a number of the other children, she was just hanging out checking out the "blancs" (white people) and me as we worked on what was their church/school building until the January 2010 earthquake.  She didn't do anything but try to help like some of the boys had...  and in an instant she stole my heart and made me wish that I had a 10 year old daughter.

That kind of strange power that girls have is ridiculous.  If she didn't have four older siblings that loved her and would probably never let her go, I would look high and low for how to adopt her (with Kimberly's blessing of course).  Of course the only hangup with that is that Haitian adoption is a miserable process from what I've heard.  I think it barely has an edge on getting a camel through eye of a needle.

Much love!

It’s not what you think…

I have trouble being an American sometimes.  I think we can be too self-sufficient and too selfish.  A trip that I made to Haiti at the end of July has made it even harder for me to be comfortable.  I keep thinking about the words of Jesus and looking at my life and going something’s not right here.  One of the scriptures that I’ve looked to recently is the account of a rich young ruler.  Here’s what I see and what I wholeheartedly believe it teaches us.

In Luke 18 (also an account in Matthew and Mark), Jesus encounters a rich guy that wanted to assert himself as deserving of the kingdom of God.  So, he asks Jesus a question about what he needed to do to be saved.  It got down to Jesus telling him to go get rid of all his stuff, give the proceeds to the poor and to follow him (Jesus).   Jesus wanted him to unload all of the deadweight from his life so that he wouldn’t have any trouble being a worthy disciple.

Well, the young man refused to part ways with his stuff.  And as he walked away sad, Jesus turned to his disciples and said, "How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!  For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God." And then, those who heard it said, "Then who can be saved?"

So, what’s the confusion about here among the listeners?  Well, you’d have to go back to people like Abraham to see.  Abraham was very wealthy.  His son Isaac was very wealthy.  And his sons were also very wealthy.  And, if you follow the history and even the law of the Jews, it seemed that those who found favor with God had great wealth.  And, now Jesus says it is exceedingly difficult to enter the kingdom of God as a rich man.  Why?

It is because God requires our full allegiance.  If we will trust in him for salvation and not our stuff, then we have to take our eyes off our stuff to truly see what he desires for us.  Jesus makes several comments similar to this.  The whole line of conversations about one guy needing to go bury his father or another wanting to go say goodbye to his family; in all of these Jesus is saying that the kingdom has urgency and if you can’t get on board with the urgency of the kingdom then you’re not worthy of me.

Jesus also says that we must pick up our cross and follow him.  That’s right pick up the very tool that was used to kill Jesus and at least one of his disciples and follow him.  The kingdom of God is counter cultural.  Christ calls us to imitate him in denouncing the ways of this world and trusting him with every aspect of our lives which may mean that we lose our lives; as in we may not be popular with the people that like the world; and as in we may literally lose our lives pursuing what he tells us to pursue.

Jesus said lots of hard stuff.  And, it all makes me ask the question… “Have most “Christians” missed the mark of what it means to follow him, to really really follow him?  

Did something change from the Old Testament to the New?  I think so.  If you look at all the patriarchs and their wealth, they served God with it.  And, one of the primary goals of the Old Testament was to establish a nation and to establish a place where God could be worshipped (i.e. the temple.)  And, now both Christ and his followers are the temple of God.  So, it doesn’t take a lot of money to upkeep a body.  So, we give it away to people who are dying with the hope of saving their lives and saving their souls.

God has called us to himself that we would worship him and then he has commissioned us to go tell others about him that they might worship him.   And sometimes it takes us selling all that we have and giving the proceeds to the poor in order to accomplish that.  The gospel aint ya mama’s prosperity gospel.  

Much love!

Identified with Christ (Make much of him, not yourself)

Lately, I've been reading Paul's letter to the Romans (I'm still in Chapter 1).  I've literally been stuck there for a couple of months and, I don't mean that in a bad way...  I had been wanting to study and memorize parts of Romans for a while now, but since I have been reading it this time through, I keep going back to Paul's introduction in the first six or seven verses.

It's the longest of all of Paul's introductions in his letters to the churches.  And, that is largely because it is to a church that he did not have a part in launching nor had he even visited.  But, he longed to visit and he also appears to want to make Rome a new ministry base for his ministry in the "West".  This eventually happens, but not in a way that you, me or Paul would have drawn it up.  It became his base a few years later as he sat their imprisoned; and there he also eventually died.

But, back to the verses and what I believe they say to me the most...  Paul talks about himself for half a verse and even that is pointed to Jesus and Paul's role as his servant.  As Paul gushes on and on about the gospel and how it was foretold for hundreds and thousands of years by the prophets; and about Jesus and how he's the Son of David and the Son of God; and God's grace towards us via apostleship and the establishment of his kingdom, I lose sight of Paul himself as a man.

As for me; I find my identity in Christ, but if I some days I do find my identity in being a 6 foot 4 inch 240 pound black dude; in being an engineer, in working for the "power company", in being Kimberly's husband, in being Caleb's dad,  in being Jessie's youngest son; in some sort of political allegiance; in a social club; in the house I own; or the car I drive...   You get the picture!  Christ follower, identify with your savior before you identify with anything else.

The gospel is being watered down with the lives we live that are about us, our desires, and our dreams.  Churches have become social clubs and sermons have become about having your best life now and reaching our personal goals.  Instead, we should all pursue what Paul speaks of a little further into Romans Chapter 1...  He was obligated both to Greeks and Barbarians to preach the gospel to them.  Make it your aim to preach the gospel of Jesus' life, death, burial, resurrection, ascension and his return.  That's worth living for... When we make much of him; and less of ourselves, our lives then have the most value, they'll ever have.

Much love!!

I'm Getting Closer

I love this song, Closer by Lara Landon...

It is my hope that I am being sanctified day by day, growing closer to the image of my Lord and Savior...

And, I'll admit before you watch this video, the song is better than the video.  I'm not sure what she was thinking...making a hokey video like this.  :o)




Much love!