I have been asked many times where to invest the money folks have saved. In other words, after you have been following the instructions God gives on how to handle the funds He trusted you with by giving and saving and you have a few funds saved, where do you invest these funds?

Learning to invest is another step in the growth process. First, I am not an investment advisor. I am not licensed, so it would be illegal for me to advise on any particular type of investment. Nothing in this blog should be taken as advice on what to invest in. Talk to your spouse, pray, and study to come to a conclusion. Having said that, many people ask me about how to invest some of their saved funds. What are some good investments?

I feel that many people fear the loss of their hard-earned savings. Fear is a great detriment to prosperity. God says about 365 times: “Fear Not” or “Do not be afraid.” Some simply want someone to tell them what to do partly out of fear of making a wrong decision and assuming that I would know how to invest their money better than they would.

Psalm 62:10 Trust not in oppression and become not vain in robbery: if riches increase, set not your heart upon them…

Proverbs 11:28  He that trusteth in his riches shall fall: but the righteous shall flourish as a branch.

So here, God tells us to NOT trust in our money and not to set our heart upon riches. If we keep prosperity in its proper order, we have no reason to be afraid. As last week’s blog, “It All Belongs to Him,” showed, all the wealth of the earth and the earth itself belong to God. Our Father is well able to take care of us no matter what happens. Prosperity from God is one of the benefits of being part of His family. God simply trusts us to manage the money for Him. And He reminds us not to set our heart on the money but to keep our eyes fixed on Him — to worship Him, to walk with Him, to pray to Him, and to put our trust in Him.

It is also interesting that God tells us that riches can just disappear.

Proverbs 23:5 Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? for riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven.

The righteous people who survived the Babylonian captivity and who were carried away captive to Babylon probably lost all their wealth. The Babylonians spoiled the city and took the wealth for themselves. But the righteous ones that were spared from death still had their lives and their relationship with God. That is the most important part of our lives as well. But if they did lose their wealth the thing that could not be taken away was the knowledge and wisdom they had acquired concerning wealth. This is why wisdom is more valuable than money. They can steal your money but not your acquired wisdom.

Proverbs 27:24 For riches are not for ever: and doth the crown endure to every generation?

For some of us, this truth from God’s Word that we are to save money was a new level of understanding. But after you have the habit of saving worked into your life, we are ready for the next level of the prosperity journey: Investing!! Now we are growing up a notch!!

Most of us did not grow up saving or investing. So, learning to invest can be a daunting task. What to invest in?

Some people have their investments in 401K’s or in an IRA. Here, most of the investing is done for you.

Some people bury their wealth under the floor, in milk cans in the backyard, etc. The problem here is that even though the robbers can’t get it nor perhaps the government, inflation eats away at its value until it is practically worthless. So, to be good managers or stewards of what God has given us we need to LEARN how to invest. We need to send ourselves back to school!!

The first lesson to learn in investing is this from the prayer of Jabez and also from the book of Proverbs.

1Chronicles 4:10 And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thine hand might be with me, and that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me! And God granted him that which he requested.

Psalm 1:3 And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.

Remember, the money you have saved really belongs to God, and as you endeavor to invest it, He will be right there with you helping you. But we have an obligation to learn how to invest. Like the verse says, the horse is prepared against the day of battle, but safety is of the Lord. We do our best and, in the end, God is the one that fills our storehouses. And in the end, sometimes that work/that wealth just flies away. This is part of why God says not to set your heart on the money. What you have left is the wisdom you obtained in the process. That is worth more that the money. You could do it over again much quicker.

(A side note here is this: many people prosper without believing God and His Word. That is because God causes it to rain on the just and the unjust. Prosperity is available to all.  We are endeavoring to use what God gives us according to His Word. His promise is whatever we do will prosper, and I suspect we will be rewarded when Christ returns.)

So, let’s look at investing. What are the main reasons for investing?

• Make your money work for you to increase your wealth — to be good managers.
• Achieve self-determination and independence. In other words, freedom.
• Leave a legacy to your heirs as Dave Ramsey suggests.
• Support causes that are important to you.
• Fund your retirement.

I had a designer years ago who invested her profits in art from current popular artists that she liked. She felt the artwork would increase in value and that it would fund her retirement. This was an area she knew about and was interested in.

Some people buy:

• Stocks, bonds, or mutual funds and reinvest the dividends which is a form of compounding.
• Art
• An interest in racehorses.
• Tax-free utilities.
• Certificates of Deposit.
• Real estate (you pay cash for) or REITs.
• Mobile home parks
• Farmland or harvestable forests
• Annuities
• Gold and silver
• Car washes
• Oil and gas leases
• Government bonds

The list could be endless. I have known people who bought and sold golf courses, people who bought companies that the IRS took over for nonpayment of taxes, made them profitable, and then sold them, and companies like the investors of Shark Tank.

One of the builders I work for explained to me that one of the reasons so many houses are being built is that some folks have the money, but the banks won’t pay any interest, so they build houses and sell them to see a return on their funds. If they don’t know how to build houses themselves, they work together with an experienced builder and pay him or split the profit with them.

I have read that some mutual funds go broke because of bad stock picks. In the book The Simple Path to Wealth, the author, J. L. Collins, recommends investing in index funds. That would be a fund that buys some of each stock in an index like the S&P 500. These index funds generally average about 11½ % per year over the long term. This is probably one of the safest ways to invest if you don’t have the time or inclination to study. But remember, I am not recommending this.  This is just for information only.

One of the greatest investments you can make is in yourself — reading or listening to good books on personal development. Read books on different types of investments — their pros and cons.  Expand your understanding of the financial world. Don’t fall for the trick that you are too old to learn and invest. You have a whole lifetime of experience to draw from. Some great businesses were started by people of retirement age. Do an internet search for people who started businesses late in life.

But don’t just find something you like and jump in.  You may need to spend a couple of years learning about the field. Read books, join local groups that are like-minded, etc. Jumping in to anything on the advice of a friend or on an impulse is a great way to lose your money. Send yourself to school!!

I have known people who bought into a group of restaurants just as investors because someone in the group wanted to sell their interest. If you consider this or anything like it, learn about the business, hire an accountant and a lawyer, look at the books, the legal documents, perhaps a real estate agent to look at surrounding real estate. With empty land nearby, someone could build a bigger, fancier car wash across the street from the one you just bought. Send yourself to school.

There are many types of “investment incomes,” including interest, rents, royalties, dividends, capital gains, and other income derived from an asset.

Remember that most financial advisement businesses charge a percentage of your account like 1% to 2% per year or they charge fees to get in an investment and or fees to get out. Mutual funds are like that. Front end loaded or back end loaded. There may be a penalty for early withdrawal. These funds make money no matter what the market does. The fund manager makes money no matter what happens to your money. These fees can really cut into your account and your profits over time.

A good place to start may be to put money into CDs while you learn or put it in index funds. Then study a field you think you might be interested in. I am not recommending this, just throwing it out there for your consideration.

Find a good program that will help you keep track of your money.

Once you have started to become wealthy, remember this verse.

1Timothy 6:17-19  Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; That they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate; Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.

God reminds us here not to become prideful, and He tells us He gives us this wealth to enjoy as well as to be able to give and to invest or save.

All this learning is part of our duty, our privilege, and our heritage as stewards/managers of God’s wealth. As we are willing to obey His Word and love Him above all else, He is willing to fill our storehouses. This is all part of The Prosperous Life.

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.

We have all heard the expression “Use it or Lose it!” over the years, but did you realize that this idea comes from God’s Word?

When Jesus Christ was interested in teaching his followers about faithfulness, he used money as his illustration. I have already covered the parable of the unjust steward. It might be good to review that as it goes along with this blog.

In the parable in Mathew 25 and the parable in Luke 19, Jesus wanted to teach his followers some aspects of the kingdom that was soon to come to pass. In these records, the master gave his servants certain amounts of money and told them to do business or trade with the money until he returned.

1. These men were servants which means in that day and time they were probably bought because they could not pay their debts. This man that bought them and put them to work in his business must have spent some time training them on how to properly manage money, and now it was show time. They were to show how much they had been paying attention and what they had learned. This could easily have been a trial to see if he wanted to keep them in his employment, were they profitable to him or did he need to let them go.
2. In the record of Matthew, their master gave them “talents.” This word is confusing in English. We think of talent as actors, those that play the piano, artists or that may have a talent for sports.

But the word has two meanings.

Talent has two principal meanings: (Wikipedia)

• Talent (measurement), an ancient unit of mass and value.
• Talent (skill), a group of aptitudes useful for some activities; talents may refer to aptitudes themselves or to possessors of those talents.

According to the Britannica:  talent, a unit of weight used by many ancient civilizations, such as the Hebrews, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. The weight of a talent and its relationship to its major subdivision, the mina, varied considerably over time and location in the ancient world. The most common ratio of the talent to the mina was probably 1:60.

The Hebrew talent, or kikkār, probably of Babylonian origin, was the basic unit of weight among the ancient Hebrews. In the sacred system of weights, the Talmudic talent was equal to 60 Talmudic minas.

The original Greek word for “talent” is talantos, which refers to quantity.

So, in this record in Matthew, the word “talent” is used as a unit of weight or an amount of money.

3. Both records are parables which means they are not literally true stories. They are illustrations in story form to teach a specific point. In Matthew 25 Jesus’s point is about faithfulness again just like in the parable of the unjust steward.

So, let’s read the record from Matthew 25.

Matthew 25:14-30  For the kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods. 15  And unto one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one; to every man according to his several ability; and straightway took his journey. 16  Then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same, and made them other five talents. 17  And likewise he that had received two, he also gained other two.18  But he that had received one went and digged in the earth, and hid his lord’s money. 19 After a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and reckoneth with them. 20  And so he that had received five talents came and brought other five talents, saying, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents: behold, I have gained beside them five talents more. 21  His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. 22  He also that had received two talents came and said, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me two talents: behold, I have gained two other talents beside them. 23  His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord. 24  Then he which had received the one talent came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering where thou hast not strawed: 25  And I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth: lo, there thou hast that is thine. 26  His lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed: 27  Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury. 28  Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents. 29  For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. 30  And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

If we see ourselves as stewards/managers of the prosperity God has given us, then we need to learn how to make that money grow. It is interesting that Jesus uses money as the measuring stick to see faithfulness. Money is easy to count, easy to see how much progress we have made.

The master gave his servants varying amounts of money depending on their abilities. In this record, two of the servants doubled the amount of money the master gave them. In the record in Luke, the master gave them each the same amount of money, but they brought back different amounts – one 10 times as much and one 5 times as much as they were given. In both records, one servant gained nothing by trading but went and hid his master’s money. They did not even put it in the bank to gain interest.

Jesus spent more time teaching about the two that did nothing than he did with those that were profitable.

In Matthew, the servant that hid the money accused his Master of being a hard man, thus he was afraid of Him. In other words, he put the blame for his inaction on his master. Fear is one of the enemies of believing. There are a great many promises in God’s word of His prospering us. He has promised that “everything we do shall prosper,” “He will fill our storehouses,” and our barns shall be filled with plenty, etc.

The first servants in this parable were not afraid. They must have trusted what they had been taught and went to work. Have you ever heard the expression “trust the process?”  So why be afraid of losing what you have saved? Learn how to invest and trade and have fun. Remember God as your Father is right there to teach you and guide you.

Sometimes wealth does sprout wings and fly away, but God is still our El-Shaddai, and He has great power to defend, to support and supply our every need. He wants to see us being faithful to grow what He has given us. And as we are faithful, God is able to give us even more to steward as He did with these men.

He wants us simply to use what He has given. Some have taught that to steward something is to return it in the same condition as when they received it, or perhaps a little better. God does not want us to return to Him exactly what He gave us. In fact, the servant that gave back to the master exactly what he was given was called “wicked and slothful.” Then the wicked and slothful had the money he had been given taken away, and it was given to the faithful. WOW!

When we don’t use our muscles, we lose them. When we don’t stay in touch with our friends, we lose our connection with them. When we don’t use our “abilities,” we’re cheating ourselves.

God has a great deal of investment in your life. He created you; He Shaped you, and He gave His only Son Jesus Christ for you. He has given us the principles of prosperity, and He wants you to use them. He wants us to generate income and to build up the church.

If we can learn to be faithful stewards of the things of this life, the unrighteous mammon, the prosperity He gives us, then we show ourselves to be faithful servants of our Father, and He can trust us with even more of the spiritual side of this life.

Use it – or Lose it! This too is part of The Prosperous Life.

​Deuteronomy 8:18 But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day.