Once I learned that the concept of saving money was Biblical and that it was what God said to do in His Word, it was a struggle to really incorporate that into our lives. There was so much I did not understand.

A great man once said, “If you want your life to change, you have to change.”

I am reminded of the verse in Romans 12:2 that states “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

This idea of changing our lives is very interesting. You have the popular stories of rags to riches. Then you have the stories of people that completely changed their way of eating and gained great benefits. You can find contractors that have had people walk on them and take advantage of them and then change to no longer being intimidated and standing up for themselves. All these changing processes take time and cause great changes in a person’s life. The person that participates in these changes cannot see or imagine the great benefits that will result down the road.

There were two events that really helped us change the way we saw and managed our finances. As we changed our thinking, our lives began to change financially.

Some of the changes that took place in our lives were:

The anxiety over day-to-day bills disappeared.

We were able to put a buffer in all our accounts so there was always money in there to protect us from overdraft fees.

We used to have to look at our bills and pay them one at a time as they came up. Now we pay this week’s bills on Monday or put them on autopay. We did not do this in the past out of fear that there would not be enough money in the account when it was deducted from the account.

We were able to put extra money on our loans to pay them off early.

It was a great relief not to be fearful all the time of overdrawing the account or being late on bills.

As we built our emergency fund up, there was less fear and anxiety as emergencies came up because now, we could pay for the event.

Our biggest change was the loss of fear and anxiety when it came to money.

Changing your thinking, your believing, and what is living in your heart can be difficult. If God’s Word directs your changes, you will see the results God has promised.

In one of the Martin Luther movies, his priest/father asked if Martin had found the answer he was looking for. Martin Luther said that he knew it in his head, but it was not yet in his heart. It takes a while to change our knowledge, our thinking, and eventually what lives in our hearts.

This is true when it comes to putting on the mind of Christ as well as when it comes to putting on the right thinking about money that God shows us in His word. It takes work and time.

The first event that really helped us turn our financial lives around was:  I had been saving my change in quart jars for quite a while. I had seen many people save their change in those 5-gallon water jugs with the small tops and always wanted to do that. Not having a five-gallon jug, I settled for quart jars. I had seen that God encouraged us to save money, so quart jars were where I started. Then one day, we needed money to pay a certain bill, so my wife asked if she could take the jars to the bank and cash in the change. I said, “No.” I told her that this is what we had always done. We would save some money and then spend it to pay a bill or put a down payment on a car. It always went to pay something. Then we had nothing, and we had to start over.

That day I said, “NO!” was a day that began to turn our lives around. I said, “This cannot be what God intended when He asked us to save.”  I decided God would have to figure out another way to pay that bill, but I would no longer have this cycle of “save and use it to pay a bill – save and use it to pay a bill.” I had just had enough! From that point on, we would save a portion with no intention of EVER spending it.

That day was a turning point.

The second event was:  We started to save a small amount of money in a savings account, and I felt good about myself. We were saving money. Then as I was telling someone about a teaching I did where I told people to save some money, and as the words “save some money” came out of my mouth, it was like God shouted them in my ears. “SAVE SOME MONEY!!” This was another turning point. Apparently, the small amount I was saving was just a token, so I could say I was obeying. It was like mental assent. From that day forward, we dramatically increased the amount we saved each month.

One thing we noticed as we looked back was that as we became committed to saving, our ability to save increased. We were able to put increasingly more away. As God has said, “To those that have, more shall be given.”

Can we as God’s children change? Obviously, we can, or God would not ask us to renew our minds or change once we are born again.

If you want your life to change, you have to change which can be difficult. This process involves changing your thinking, your habits, and what lives in your heart.

However, change requires hard work and opening yourself to new experiences. But we realize people don’t change instantly. I heard someone once say that when the great ocean-going ships come into a harbor, you don’t just whip them around to send them back out to sea. They attach tug boats to the hulls and turn them about very slowly. That is the way most of us change. We change very slowly. Unless you are like the Apostle Paul and get a great vision on the road to Damascus. He changed right then and there,

Speaking of the Apostle Paul, he helped many people become children of God. Did all these new converts to Christianity immediately operate all nine manifestations? No! This is why, to meet the needs of those new people, Paul performed special miracles. It takes a while to grow up into a new way of thinking and living our lives. Just as Paul took a few years to grow into his newfound understanding of Christ the Messiah, it was many years of study, learning, and thinking before Paul went on his preaching tours.

Why don’t we change then if there are great benefits?

The most common reason is fear of uncertainty or fear of new things. We can be afraid of the outcomes because they are unknown. We fear being outside our comfort zone of handling money the way we always have. We fear the loss of our sense of connection with others. (They are all broke, and we have a sense of belonging to that group.) All our friends and family live basically paycheck to paycheck, and we would become the odd man out. We could be afraid they would reject us, or that they would think we are now greedy because we save money. We fear being different. So, a lesson here is that as you begin to change and save and see more prosperity, keep your mouth shut. This is between you and God.

Romans says that if you have believing, have it between yourself and God.

Jesus Christ did not avoid people outside his group of disciples. He taught them, healed them, and offered them the way to eternal life. But he did not adopt their modes of thinking. We are to become Christ-like in our minds. Poverty thinking should be a thing of the past. We do not avoid others, but we can outgrow the old habits, and the old thought patterns, and enter a new level of understanding of God’s will and outline for our prosperity.

We may have to learn bookkeeping and learn how to invest that saved money. All of which can lead to a sense of uncertainty.

Some scientists suggest that uncertainty registers as an error message in our brains and needs to be corrected before we can feel comfortable again. So, we practice the new ways of understanding prosperity over and over until this new pattern becomes more comfortable than the old.

Anyone can have a day that turns their life around. It is a decision. If we change, our lives will change. The familiar and traditional ways of handling money will begin to disappear. Eventually, if we stay the course, the new way of thinking will become so real we will never go back. This is another piece of The Prosperous Life.