Does God Care How We Use Our Money?

Absolutely! People who don't believe in God or don't have a close personal relationship with Him, think He is irrelevant or dosen't care about how we use our finances. They also tend to think that the Bible is not a practical resource for 21st century issues. That could not be farther from the truth. Money is the second most discussed topic in the Bible (the first is love). Two-thirds of Jesus' parables discuss the handling of financial resources. God knew that left to our own devices, money would become the chief rival god in our lives. God wants a close personal relationship with each of us. When we spend the majority of our time thinking about how to get more money or worrying about not having enough of it, we don't focus on God and what He wants us to accomplish in our lives.

Unfortunately, we live in a society where advertising's main purpose is to make us dis-satisfied with what we already have or make us feel we can't live with things we don't have. This is the pull of the culture telling us it's ok to put that sweater on credit, or pay for the new leather couch over 12 months because it's just as if you were paying cash. Or telling us that we can afford that bigger, nicer house with an interest only loan or initial low interest rate (that always skyrockets at the worst possible moment). Or telling us that we deserve that expensive car because after all, your neighbors have it and if they can afford it, so should you. These are pitfalls that can get us into huge financial trouble.

Money is not evil. The love of money is. It is not a sin to buy nice things. However, how we prioritize our finances is extremely important to God. God wants nothing but the best for us and He knows what is best for us. As it states in Matthew 6:24 (NLT): "No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money."


I am the chairperson of the Good $ense financial ministry at my local Church. Good $ense is a program initially implemented by Willow Creek Church in Barrington, IL http://www.goodsenseministry.com. Our main focus is to instruct individuals on how to use their finances based on biblical principles, while at the same time, strengthen the individual's personal relationship with Christ. In addition to my own experiences and research, some of my comments are dervied from the instructional materials we use from the Good $ense ministry. One of the areas that we instruct on is the cultural order vs. the God-honoring order of prioritzing our finances:

The culture tells us that we should use our finances in this order:
1. Our lifestyle
2. Our debt
3. Our savings
4. Our giving (if anything is left over)

The God-honoring order is completely opposite:
1. Giving
2. Saving
3. Debt (hopefully none)
4. Lifestyle

The key to the God-honoring order is that we give from the very top. That means from our gross (not net or take home) pay. Giving comes from the heart. The Bible directs us to at least give 10% of our gross (also called the tithe), but it certainly doesn't stop there. If you are at a point that you cannot give at least 10% to the work of God (usually through a Church or local christian charity), then give something. Then establish a goal of reaching 10% or more as quickly as possible as you begin to pay down your debts. Putting God first in our finances shows that we trust in Him to provide for us. When we don't, God labels that as stealing from Him (Malachi 3:8-9; NIV). Have you ever thought that you may be stealing from God?

This is not designed to make you feel guilty about using your money. Rather, it is designed to enlighten you on God's perspective of our financial resources. Being the loving God that He is, God goes on in Malachi 3:10 and tells us to TEST Him with our tithe and that He will "throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it" (NIV). This is the only time in the Bible that God tells us to test Him. But be careful! "We should not give to God with the expectation or for the purpose of getting something back. God is saying that if we choose to be generous, he will keep giving to us so that we can continue our lifestyle of giving" (2 Corithians 9:8-11, as summarized in the side notes of the NIV Quest Study Bible, Revised by The Zondervan Corporation).

When I was struggling financially and God put on my heart that in order to get out of my financial nightmare to give 10% back to Him from my gross, my initial reaction was "how in the world am I going to be able to do that?!" I was already not making ends meet, so having less money at first seemed to make no sense. However, I quickly realized that as I started tithing, I was no longer trusting in my own abilities to get me out of the mess I created. God was taking over. It was very scary, but God was so faithful to me. I cannot even begin to attempt to recall everything He did for me during those times, but He always provided in ways that I thought initially were impossible. From that point forward, I never missed any payments to my creditors. My story is not unique. There are literally tens of thousands of people with a similar testimony. However, one thing we share in common is: we took that leap of faith to honor God with our tithe regardless of our financial situation just as he expected. In return, He blessed us, just as He promised.

We will cover Saving, Debt and Lifestyle on future blogs.