Beliefs About Money (EDIT)

If you want a growing ministry, you are going to need a growing financial position. If you want a big ministry, you are going to need big finances.

If you want to change the world, you are going to need a world-changing amount of money.

This is a big problem for ministry leaders because we believe all kinds of false beliefs about money in the church.

Here are some of the beliefs you may hold about money:

Money is the root of all evil.

Money is evil.

Money is bad.

Being rich is bad.

It’s hard for the rich to go to heaven.

The rich can’t go to heaven.

People are psychologically driven to act in alignment with their beliefs. If we believe something and then act out of alignment with that belief, we feel negative emotions.

This means that if we really believe that money is bad, we knowingly or unknowingly engage in behaviors that remove financial stability from our ministries.

The hard truth is that money is required to run a ministry. If you believe that money is evil, you will find a way to rid your ministry of money – and you won’t have a ministry for very long.

Let’s address some of these beliefs:

Belief: Money is evil. Money is bad.

If you believe either of these statements and you are being logically consistent, your ministry should have 0 money. Unfortunately, ministries with no money don’t remain in ministry very long. This is not a sustainable belief about money.

Not only will this belief ruin your ministry, but it’s also logically false.

Money is an inanimate object – it has no moral qualities. It’s the same as saying my floorboards are evil. It doesn’t make any sense. In reality, money is A-moral. It is neither good nor evil.

New Belief: Money Is A-Moral

Adding to this, money enables people to be more of what they already are. If someone values evil, money gives them the ability to do more evil. This is also true of those who wish to do good.

Consider a brick. I can use a brick to wack someone (evil) or I can use it to build a house for the homeless.

If I have a million bricks, I can wack a million people or build a million houses.

The brick here is simply a tool that enables me to do more of what I want to do.

Money is also a tool.

New Belief: Money is a tool.

The more bricks you have, the more of yourself you are able to become.

The same is true with money.

New Belief: Money makes people more of what they already are.

The ability money gives us to become more of what we already are is dangerous because all of us still have some amount of the flesh’s influence in our lives. Even Paul says this was true about himself:

“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” -Romans 7:15

When money makes us more of who we are, and when we do the things we hate, we begin to understand when it is harder for the rich to go to heaven that a camel through the eye of a needle (Matthew 19:24).

When people have riches, they have the unlimited ability to bring about the part of themself that does not honor God. They can pursue any unrighteous motivation that exists in their heart.

A person with a big tool is always more dangerous that a person with a small tool. A person with a big stick is more dangerous than a person with a small one.

The more growth and success your ministry is given, the larger the financial resources you will need to have to move forward and create more growth. The more financial resources you have, the more ability you will have to stumble.

For this reason, you must be aware that the same tools that fuel the growth of the ministry are the same tools that can cause its (and your) destruction.

For this reason, we must continue to work out our faith with fear and trembling. Any material blessing, financial blessing included, demands that we walk the razor’s edge of our own human nature.