3 Steps to a Kingdom Money Mindset
Money is an integral part of life.
In fact, there are 2,350 verses in the Bible that relate to money in some form or fashion, which, among other reasons, makes it an important topic to discuss. It’s a part of the race of life.
In reality, money is just the middleman. It’s a representative of other things like groceries, a movie night, or an engagement ring. It replaces the need for us to trade things like chickens or bushels of home-grown produce to buy things. Money also represents what we value. For example, we put our valuable time and energy into our work and receive money in exchange. The money we make from our work not only gives us the resources to survive; it also gives us purchasing power. Whenever we purchase something, it is essentially our vote about what we consider valuable.
So, money serves as the standard placed on the value of items. Therefore, we assign items with dollar signs that have specific amounts attached to them. This tells us what the item costs and, more importantly, what the market considers the item to be worth.
When we put money in this light, it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. It is essentially a tool that we can manipulate according to our purposes. Why, then, does Jesus warn against the love of money so adamantly?
The Rich Young Man
One of the most blunt interactions Jesus had regarding wealth was with a rich young man in Matthew 19:16-24. He came up to Jesus with a simple question. He asked, “Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?”
Jesus simply responded, “If you want to enter into life, keep the commandments.” The young man confirmed that he kept the commandments, but he felt like there was something that he lacked. So, Jesus elaborated.
“If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”
Notice that Jesus said if you want to be perfect. They were in more intricate territory than just eternal life here. The young ruler might have had a ticket to heaven, but he knew there was more. Unfortunately, he wasn’t willing to meet the requirement to receive more. He walked away sorrowful because he had great wealth and wasn’t willing to give away his possessions.
Then Jesus told His disciples, “Assuredly, I say to you that it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
We Have a Choice
The Kingdom of God isn’t just a place we go to after we die (see Matthew 6:10). It’s a culture we create while we’re living in the earth. I think that it is hard for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven because there is a heightened temptation to value earthly treasure instead of heavenly treasure.
Like the young ruler, we are given a choice of which treasure we value. Money isn’t bad in and of itself—remember, it’s just a tool. Being rich becomes detrimental when we value money more than our relationship with God. This scripture gives us two ways to ensure that we think rightly about money as we run the race of our season:
1. Generosity
Greed and self-centered gain do not exist in The Kingdom of Heaven. Therefore, if someone chooses to be selfish with their possessions, they are choosing to crowd their space with earthly treasure rather than heavenly treasure. Jesus adjured the young man to sell his possessions and follow Him. Every person must discern with God how much they should give.
It is not just that it’s better to give than receive—generosity also serves as a spiritual safeguard. It protects our heart from the all-consuming power of greed. A pastor of Bethel Church, Kris Vallotton, was once asked how much money was too much money for a Christian to have. He wisely responded, “Any amount that keeps you from trusting God. For some, this is a few hundred dollars. For others, it’s billions.” That is why it’s important to practice generosity before you build wealth. God wants to grow your wealth in tandem with your generosity.
Second Corinthians 9:6 says, “He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.” When we give generously, we demonstrate that we can be trusted with blessings. God knows they won’t crush our character, and we will return the blessing back to Him! Just as God intended our work to be in partnership with Him, He wants this for our finances too.
2. Dependency
Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 19:14, ESV).
Right before Jesus approached the rich young man, He spent time with a crowd of kids. He was delighted and announced that children have the Kingdom of Heaven! Then, as we just read, a rich guy came up to Jesus and asked how he could get the Kingdom of Heaven too. The children had something the rich guy didn’t—dependency. They were still innocent and trusting.
One of my favorite verses in the whole Bible is Deuteronomy 8:17-18. In this chapter, the Lord has just led a new generation of Israelites into the Promised Land. After a grueling journey that took several decades, God said:
Then you say in your heart, “My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.” And you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day.
Though the Israelites had been wandering through the wilderness, God knew that the moment they had provision they’d be prone to forget that He was the one who provided it in the first place! It is easy for pride to sneak into our lives. The verse warns the Israelites not to “say in your heart.” We need to be mindful of our mindset and heart posture toward wealth.
I admittedly went through this process myself. Even though I was born again, filled with the Holy Spirit, and knew the Word of God, the motives of my heart were not right when I started to build wealth. I got to a point in my life where I thought I reached my goals from my own strength and smarts. That is a dangerous place to be. When that kind of pride creeps in, it becomes exceedingly difficult to serve God.
Pride doesn’t have to come in the form of money either. There is a tendency to look at all of the money, work, and experience you put into the last however many years and feel like you are entitled to a great position. It’s all too easy to look at your resume and get a self-inflated notion that you’re the one who pulled yourself up by your bootstraps to land in your current situation. You should be happy with your accomplishments. However, when you put the burden of success on your own shoulders it will come back to crush you.
Your Money Mindset
Your money mindset is crucial to how you steward your resources in any given season. A money mindset is simply how you think about money and your relationship to it. If you think you can build wealth, you probably will. If you think you can’t, you probably won’t. The best things in life are attracted, not pursued, so your mindset plays a big role in what comes your way. It’s not magic. Here’s how it works. Over time, if you have and apply the right mindset, you will develop the character and skills to carry more weight. Even if you’ve never built any kind of wealth before, the right mindset gives you the eyes to see opportunities you might miss otherwise. Here are three mindsets that I’ve had to develop in order to be a good steward of the resources God has made available to me.
1. Abundance Mindset
People typically gravitate toward an abundance or a poverty mindset. To help you distinguish the difference, consider a pie. Someone with an abundance mindset believes that there are unlimited slices of the pie, so to speak, whereas someone with a poverty mindset believes there is a specific amount. In the natural world, the person with the poverty mindset is often logically correct. However, we serve a God who is in the business of multiplying loaves and fishes! (See Matthew 14:13-21; Mark 6:30-44; Luke 9:10-17; John 6:1-15) There are always more possibilities than what meets the eye. Applying faith to your finances challenges you to think outside of the mindsets you grew up with.
For example, I was raised in a 1,100-square-foot house with my siblings in south Texas. My dad was a pipefitter, and my mom was an incredible God-fearing woman. They worked hard to put food on the table, and we always had enough. It really didn’t occur to me that we didn’t have a lot until I laid eyes on the prettiest (and richest) woman in town. Long story short, that woman became my wife. When I asked her father for permission to marry her, I jokingly said, “Sir, I pursued your daughter not only because she was the most beautiful and kind girl I’d ever met, but also because her family had money!”
He continued the jest and replied, “And Billy—you’re not getting any of it!” From that point on, I had tasted and seen that there was more. I was developing a mindset of abundance, and Becky and I resolved to create our own wealth.
Someone with an abundance mindset also understands that God provides more than enough to meet every need for those who trust in Him. Someone with a poverty mindset is usually too focused on meeting quotas in their own strength to really grasp that truth. I think this is what Jesus had in mind when He taught, “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money” (Matthew 6:24, ESV).
It’s no secret that when the money isn’t there, life is rough. It is easy to become suffocated by the demands of your rent or mortgage, utilities, loans, and other expenses. It is easy to feel like you’ll always be scrounging to make ends meet. If you’re not careful, over time these feelings of stress and fear can build into mindsets that dictate your decisions. You’ll begin to use money as the metric for how you pick your job and allocate your finances rather than trusting God’s provision and following in step with the Spirit.
Jesus obviously knew this, because right after the statement about being a slave to money He said:
Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? (Matthew 6:25-27, NIV)
I believe that Jesus knew worrying about money was a major way that people become a slave to it. Worrying doesn’t add anything to your life, but it does rob from your peace and comfort. In contrast, an abundance mindset trusts that God is a loving and generous master! However, nothing about an abundance mindset advocates sitting around aimlessly and waiting for God to poof provision into your lap. That’s a false prosperity gospel. Part of the way God provides is through opportunities to make money and systems to create wealth. That’s why a wisdom mindset is the next crucial money mindset.
2. Wisdom Mindset
There is a tendency to connote wisdom with ethereal, spiritual matters. Wisdom is spiritual, but it is highly practical as well—the two are not mutually exclusive at all. The Hebrew word for wisdom is chokmâh, a derivative of the verb chakam (to be wise), and it is the ability to judge correctly and follow the best course of action.
The poster child for wisdom in the Old Testament is King Solomon. He was the son of David, and like his dad, he loved and followed God. When he became king of Israel, God appeared to Solomon in a dream and said, “Ask what I shall give you.” Solomon asked, “Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to govern this your great people?” (1 Kings 3:5,9, ESV). His wish expressed great humility and dependency, and God granted it. The Book of 1 Kings contains several examples of Solomon’s wealth, knowledge in matters like biology and literature, and leadership tactics. It is estimated that he became king in his late teens, and he reigned for forty years in one of the most prosperous periods in Israel’s history, called “The Golden Age of Israel” by many.
Regardless of age, anyone can receive wisdom from God. From studying Solomon’s life, we know that wisdom is multifaceted and practical. Therefore, a key part of a solid money mindset is the desire for wisdom and the knowledge that you can invite God into the logistics of the wealth-building process.
3. Kingdom Mindset
As we touch upon several times in my book, Run Your Race, everything we do is to glorify God. There are wealth building systems that work, and we can leverage them to make a big difference in the world. Someone with a Kingdom mindset builds wealth with the motivation to devote all their time and resources to God’s calling on their life.
Before we get into the practical steps you can take to build wealth, I’d like to share my wealth-building story with you. When you don’t have a lot of money, it’s easy to look at people who do and think that their advice is unrelatable or their means unattainable. If that’s you, it is my goal to change your mind.
I did not come from a wealthy background. We were lower-middle class at best. Luckily, I was privileged to grow up in the United States where lower-middle class is wealthy compared to other areas of the globe. Anyway, after Becky and I got married one of the first steps we took was buying a home. We even had someone cosign on the mortgage because we didn’t quite have the credentials. Years later, when it was time for us to move, we couldn’t sell our house. We were out of options, so we decided to rent it. The amount of rent that our tenants paid not only covered our mortgage payment but provided extra spending cash as well. Becky and I thought to ourselves, Dang, we should start doing this on purpose! So, slowly but surely, we acquired investment properties.
As I’ve already mentioned, I was a pastor for several years. One year, we held a major conference at the church. When I say major, I mean that several guest speakers flew in on their private jets! As a young pastor, I was already blown away by these people. Then, when the conference was over, two of the private jet owners and I went to the mountains for a couple of days of rest. We went to a huge hot springs pool in Colorado. As we stood in the steaming water, one of the guys looked at me and said, “Billy, what kind of plans have you made for retirement?”
Usually, a conversation would start with, “So, did you enjoy the drive up?” or “What did you think about the conference?” But this guy just cut right to the chase. I thought about the little money I put aside from my real estate investments, and before I could answer, he said something that shook me. “If I did not have my ministry, I would be broke in 90 days,” he confided. “I would literally be out on the street.”
I couldn’t believe it! He flew out on the private jet from his ministry, but he had little wealth of his own. Before he said that, I was aspiring to be him. After he said that, I was motivated to become a better steward of the resources made available to me. When I returned home from the trip, I began a journey. I was determined to replace my entire salary and benefits with passive income—income I didn’t have to work for. At the time, my salary, benefits, and travel felt like a pretty big paycheck, so that was a significant goal for me to reach. But I was determined. So, I set my face like a flint, and here’s what happened.
By God’s grace, I caught the real estate market at just the right time in the United States. During this time, I took several risks and developed formulas for real estate investing. I was learning how to not overpay for real estate. After the first ten properties and over the course of two and a half years, I finally reached my goal of replacing my income with passive income. I didn’t have to sell anything or put in too many extra hours to reach financial freedom.
I remember the specific day I replaced my salary and benefits with passive income. I was sitting in the Starbucks parking lot enjoying a quad shot grande Americano—no cream, no sugar. It’s what I call a “man’s man” drink. As I was sitting there, I received a call from one of my property managers and my accountant. This particular manager told me that we had reached my goal. I had replaced all of my income with passive income. Suddenly I felt so free, and on that day, I truly became a master of my money! It took me a few more years to understand God’s purpose for my financial freedom. He showed me how to apply a Kingdom mindset to the surplus of resources I now have. I am able to invest my time and money into causes that empower people and restore brokenness.
For Christians, financial freedom is all about having the space and resources to devote yourself to what God has called you to do. When you’re financially free, you’re not dependent on a job to support your livelihood. Now, what I did wasn’t anything particularly special. I just took a few risks and stuck to a system that works. I firmly believe that you can be financially free as well.
