Reading: Personal Finances part 3 (Slides)

Personal Finances

Professor Steve Elzinga

Three winning attitudes towards succeeding in your personal finances

Attitude One: I am somebody

Proverbs 4:23 (GN) Be careful how think because your life is shaped by your thoughts.

Believe you are somebody

Problem: We tend to see ourselves through the eyes of others

Solution: See yourself through the eyes of God

Believe you are somebody

Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV) For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Attitude Two: I am needed

Corinthians 12:27 (NIV) 27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

Romans 12:5 (LB) We belong to eachother and each of us needs all the others.

Ephesians 1:11 In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, 12 in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. 

Attitude Two: I am needed

Ephesians 4:4-16 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.... 16 From him (christ) the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

Attitude Three: I will try

2 kinds of problems:

Invented 

Inherited 

Make trying the goal not avoiding problems

Philippians 3:13 (NIV) Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

If avoiding problems is your ultimate goal you will ...

... never try anything new

... never take responsibility

... never accept a challenge

... never commit to anything

When you fail try again

Proverbs 20:3 Sometimes if takes a painful situation to make us change our ways.

Four winning skills needed for succeeding in your personal finances

Skill one: Self-discipline

= delayed gratification

Proverbs 10:5 (NIV) He who gathers crops in summer is a prudent son, but he who sleeps during harvest is a disgraceful son.

Four winning skills needed for succeeding in your personal finances

Skill Two: Communication

Talk to people you trust

Listen to people you trust

Four winning skills needed for succeeding in your personal finances

Skill Three: Responsibility

Make yourself responsible when it comes to your finances.

How?

Understand the power of consequences.

Consequences

Natural

Proverbs 16:26 (NIV) The appetite of laborers works for them; their hunger drives them on

Consequences

Logical

2 Thessalonians 3:10 (NIV) For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: "The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.”

Consequences

Agreed to

Genesis 2:16-17 (NIV) And the Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

Skill Four: Judgment